Surprisingly there is no jam at Woodlands checkpoint and the causeway at 9am today. Whats wrong? Everyone preparing for Tuesday school to start?
Yup, most pleasantly surprised, no jam whatsoever... went in 9am and went out 8pm.
Surprisingly there is no jam at Woodlands checkpoint and the causeway at 9am today. Whats wrong? Everyone preparing for Tuesday school to start?
Hi greddy88,I'm not familiar with those finance stuffs.. most people take loan with floating rate?
does it mean that the bank is free to up/down the rate according to market?
I was sort-of asking around. In a economic downturn (u know, 2007 and so on), JB wasn't affected much. I suppose this round (upcoming 2013-) wouldn't be either.
However, as most will take loan from banks... and in a global crunch, banks will likely be exposed, some more severe.
So.. if we take a floating rate loan, would that be causing any concern?
Hi greddy88,
Answer to your question is definitely a 'Yes'. The other question you should be asking is how concern you should be.
Currently, loan interest rate is around 4.2%. Assume that it rises to 7% - 8%, if you can still service the loan installment without much compromises to your other financial commitments, you can concern less.
Hope this helps.
Today visited JPO, this for the second time.
Some observations :
- open concept shops and carpark : on a baking hot day like today, it was really bad.
Although the fans and shelter shades reduced the heat somewhat, I shudder to think if it were in middle of the year, when the weather is hottest and you dont have the wind like now.
The carparks were pretty far away too and no shelter whatsoever, so on hot days like today, the car is an oven, aircond working overtime.
On rainy days, I can imagine it will be a logistical nightmare if all the cars congregate at the kerb to pick up passengers and can be dangerous.
- quality of goods : at best, is inconsistent. Some garments, for example, looked soiled and obviously are old stock. A few times we tried to ask for certain sizes in clothes and especially for shoes, no sizes left.
- food court, we found was too small and the variety of food quite wanting. It does not make sense to have lunch or dinner here at all. Maybe for a quick bite or snacks perhaps.
- Coach : well, just wanted to mention this as we thought it was strange that a persistent queue formed outside since 10am and when we left at 1230pm, after circling the store a few times, we still could not enter (we didnt want to queue as we wanted to finish within 3 hours!).
I mentioned "strange" because whenever we peered into the shop, it was half-empty! The right-hand side of the shop was glaringly under-patronised and hardly any customers, while all the main action was at the ladies bags section.
They really should do something on their product mix and crowd management as they surely lost our biz today. It would probably have been better if they do not stop people from entering as some shops were equally busy as well but there wasnt any "no entry" policy there...
OK, my wife said that it was probably to ensure the patrons had a nice "buying experience"; well, it surely didnt happen to us as we did not even manage to enter. Besides, Coach is not exactly a high-end luxury brand, so what "experience" to speak about... OK, I'm just pissed as we couldnt enter, hehehe...
- Smokers : for us who are non-smokers, it wasn't a nice experience as smokers were walking along and especially where they put the benches and dustbins, people were lighting up and puffing away. JPO should really designate separate areas for smokers (away from crowds) and not allow them to smoke along the corridors outside the shops. For us, this was a real bad experience, on a hot and humid day. Talk about 2nd hand smoke on all the kids and older folks too...
- Parking : having driven almost an hour to reach a Mall situated in the middle of nowhere, the very least one expected would be free parking! ... Well, the 1st time I was there, it was free. Today its M$3 per entry. It was not exactly the money (well, every cent counts these days!) but more the searching for ticket and the damn queue. Amazing that there was a person stationed at the ticket machine (I think its one single ticketing machine per end next to Maybank and the ATMs), helping each person to put in the ticket and the money. Hopefully the machines dont break down one of these days!...
Overall, apart from a few decent buys, we did not enjoy the shopping experience at all.
We spent less than 3 hours there and by the time we were ready to leave, it was already quite "enough".
In contrast, we spent the next 4 hours in Jusco Bukit Indah and had a much, much more pleasant experience.
I dont think we will be back to JPO for a long time, sorry to say (ok, maybe just one more time, for the Coach bag my niece wanted but anyway...).
Hopefully, things will improve - fast and drastically! :*:
Cheers!
Wow! I got two partners liao! Better quickly start the investor list:
1. CameraMan - RM10k
2. mathstub - ???
3. arsenal - ???
:p
As you can tell, this list is meant as a joke. But then again, who knows. 2012 is a year of unpredictability.
visited Mydin at East Ledang today...altho small but i think price is generally slightly cheaper..
also manage to visit kota iskandar and puteri harbour for the first time...amazed at the scale of the plan for the place. noticed the hello kitty indoor theme park opening Oct 2012...Legoland also opening around the same time....wow...i dont know whether they have the critical mass to support so many things..
Found this on LOWYAT forum which is a local Malaysian forum. Hope this shed more light on this issue. http://forum.lowyat.net/topic/1846440/all
"...........Group: Senior Member Posts: 734Joined: Mar 2011 QUOTE(shindenv @ Apr 22 2011, 12:00 PM)Not worth it... just look for other non-bumi lot if you are non-bumi else it will be like renting the property as it'll be very hard for you to sell it off later if you need to.
I don't think this advice is correct. Whether it is worth the hassle varies from individual. Personally, I would think it is worth it as I have been buying bumi lots. It does take quite a bit of time to get the approval but so far it has been 100% success rate. The prices given normally are around 20-30% below market rate, so personally, I believe it is worth the hassle. Once the bumi lot is transferred to a non-bumi, then the lot becomes international and the next person can still sell to non-bumis. However, if the non-bumi sells to another bumi down the track, then it automatically converts itself back to bumi lot........."
Hi Puteri Harbour,
Agree with Mathstub's comments about Bumi Release lot. I had a chance to look at the title for Ledang Heights land for Bumi Release lot. Very restrictive for future transaction especially if you are buying for investment. Comparing an international lot land title, you wont find any clauses listed but in the Bumi Release one, whole list of it! The agent will definitely keep telling you that "but you have a letter that states its been released". Similar advice given by Mathstub, why bother with it, might as well buy one which comes with a clean sheet of title without any other attachments! I will only consider it, if it is say 30% cheaper and for own stay (at least not dealing with selling it any time near).
Cheers
visited Mydin at East Ledang today...altho small but i think price is generally slightly cheaper..
also manage to visit kota iskandar and puteri harbour for the first time...amazed at the scale of the plan for the place. noticed the hello kitty indoor theme park opening Oct 2012...Legoland also opening around the same time....wow...i dont know whether they have the critical mass to support so many things..
Bro, is Mydin within walking distance from the sale office or main entrance of East Ledang? I have heard besides Mydin, there are other shops or restaurants or food courts there, right? Hello Kitty Indoor Theme park, I wonder whether this one is similar to the one in Macau.
Back in the mid 90s, if I recall correctly, the interest rates for mortgage loans in Malaysia went as high as 16-17%! Or maybe 12-13%?
Definitely double digits back then... maybe others from that era could recall?
thanks, and to cameraman & teck.
i just did a google.. got to this link.
http://www.economywatch.com/interest-rates/malaysia-interest-rates-(my).html
quoting "The Base Lending Rate (BLR) in Malaysia reached its peak at 12.27% in 1998 and the lowest it ever fell to was 6%."
let's say we have a 500k loan. a 12% would be 60k per yr right?
I'm not familiar with those finance stuffs.. most people take loan with floating rate?
does it mean that the bank is free to up/down the rate according to market?
I was sort-of asking around. In a economic downturn (u know, 2007 and so on), JB wasn't affected much. I suppose this round (upcoming 2013-) wouldn't be either.
However, as most will take loan from banks... and in a global crunch, banks will likely be exposed, some more severe.
So.. if we take a floating rate loan, would that be causing any concern?