Retirement Village: Green Acres in Ipoh

Last week I took a trip to Ipoh to check out a retirement village that I've been meaning to look at.

I contacted the office and they gave me the directions to the place. It's not too hard to find, actually on the main road.

The exact GPS coordinate is 4.679432, 101.080175

Phase one is still under construction and should be ready by July this year.

Comes with fully equipped kitchen.

The bathroom is pretty nice with a bench for sitting and grab bar.

You get a nice backyard as well.

The bedroom has got a lot of closet space.

I didn't take pictures of the living room. They come with 2 units of aircon for the one-bedroom unit.

In the hallway, a big closet hides your washing machine and laundry section. It's a nice touch because you can hide it when you're not using it.

They plan to have total of 4 phases. But not a lot of units. I guess they are not sure how well received this concept is going to be.

The deal is that you lease the unit and not buy it. Therefore you don't own it.

And IT'S ALL CASH. No bank loans. So if you're a poor bastard, you need not ask. And Ketuanan Melayu can fuck off because there's no Bumi discount.

They are quite clever. Because they own the properties and lease them out (not selling), they are not subjected to your NEP bullshit and Melayu quota.

So the WHOLE place can be 100% non-Bumi. How sweet is that??

The entry price is RM300,000 for a one bedroom unit. (700+ sf).

You can live there until you die and then they will return the RM300,000 minus some "deductions" to your estate.

Of course, they have the club house, F&B, blah blah blah... similar to condo facilities but geared towards the needs of senior citizens.

The unit also has emergency buttons so that if you fall down and break you hip, they will come and rescue you.

After visiting this place, we drove towards Ipoh town, and along the way within 8 minutes drive there's a Tesco. To Ipoh town is 20 mins drive.

Nearby the development there are lots of shops and restaurants, so not to worry.

Anyway, it's a nice set-up but but not really for me because Ipoh is so fucking boring...

Before we went back to KL, I needed to give the finger to somebody...

Fuck YOU!!

My new camera: Olympus E-PL7

Just a couple of days ago, I found out that my underwater housing for Olympus XZ-1 has gone kaput.

There was a rubber part to adjust the focus ring that had gone brittle and broken off and there's no way to repair it. Had to chuck the whole thing out. But it's ok, I've had it for more than 5 years. In the context of UW photography, that's a long time.

I've decided to stick with Olympus but didn't want to go the OMD range because the UW housing for these cameras are quite expensive.

The closest "smaller" camera that matches the features of OMD under the PEN series is E-PL7. There's a newer E-PL8 but not much better so E-PL7 has better value for money.

It's a beauty, isn't it? I decided on the silver one because it has a classic feel to it.

When it was launched in 2014, the price was about RM2,400, I bought it now at RM1,780 at Lazada. Since Olympus has it's 80th Anniversary promo, I got additional one year warranty plus one extra battery worth RM259.

[Never chase the latest technology and pay premium prices. This camera was launched 2+ years ago and still has the technology that's pretty much above my photography skills.]

That's one hell of a value for this little pocket power house.

The reviews are here and here.

I also needed to get the UW housing and paid RM2,210 for it. Here. [Nowadays if you know what you want, you can pretty much buy anything online.

This housing can fit in the 12-42mm pancake lens, as well as the 12mm, 17mm, 25mm, and 45mm.

You can fit in bigger lenses such as the obligatory Olympus 60mm macro lens or the Panasonic 8mm fish eye by changing the exiting macro port to the Zen series of macro/dome ports . But I have decided to go with the kit lens but use a wet lens on the outside.

Anyway, to continue.

The housing does not come with zoom gear the 14-42mm lens. So you have to get one from 3rd party.

Buy it here.

For the diopter, I planned to buy either the Aquako or Subsee

The Aquako III gives you 2.2x magnification.

The Subsee +10 diopter will give you up to 3.5x magnification DEPENDING on the focal length of your lens. At 42mm, the magnification is only 1.3x.

There's one more that I can get but I'm not going to because it is bloody expensive.

The Nautical Super Macro Converter!!

To fit into the 67mm groove of the housing I've gotten the double flip adapter. Some local dive shop (I won't mention the name) wants to charge me like RM2,000 for some shit Malaysian made flip adapter. I'd rather buy from Europe at half the price.

You can buy it here. This online store has got a lot of selections and prices are reasonable. When you buy from here, you don't have to pay for their VAT which can be quite a big sum. Postage is about Euro 40-50 depending on the size of your package.

I need to change my housing tray and handles so I've decided to go with Nauticam because it's lighter than Ultralight and seemed to be very well made. The new housing comes with two tripod holes so I need to change the tray anyway. My old housing has got only one tripod hole.

I will use back my existing arms and float arms.

Although I may add one or two more float arms by Aquako. They are kind of cool and you and put some funky toys inside the float arms. Something to talk about on the dive boat.

Eventually, i will looks something like this but not exactly.

Anyway, I've got a trip coming up next month. Quite excited to try out my new gear.

We are producing monkeys in this country.

I recently advertised my iPhone for sale at a very cheap price and of course it was sold within 2 days.

Then I realised that I can't delete my ad on Mudah (some snafu that I'm too lazy to explain). I did state clearly that interested buyer should only contact me with WhatsApp and not call.

So I have to continue dealing with enquiries for that phone.

Some people are just fucking stupid. I said WhatsApp only and yet they call to ask.

And a lot of these people are very young boys/girls.

You are so young, what the fuck are you doing buying such an expensive phone???

Some idiots WhatsApp all hours of the day... sometimes at 1am in the morning.

But that could happened because the sender may have sent out the message earlier in the evening but WhatsApp only delivered it much later. So I gave them the benefit of the doubt.

But yesterday I got really pissed off.

My phone rang after midnight.

The number was not in my contact so it has to be one of those mother fuckers.

Anyway, I didn't answer the call...

Then the fucking monkey called again!!!

I decided to teach the young man some manners.

Of course they typically start with "tu iPhone ada tak?"

Didn't even apologise for calling at such late hours. If he had any manners or "adat", he wouldn't have made that call!!

Am I right?

I blasted the chibai: "Do you fucking know what time is it now???"

Being stupid and probably uneducated even though the country wasted trillions of ringgit on these people... he probably didn't know how to reply IN ENGLISH.

The mother fucker just hung up the phone.

This is the kind of shit this country is producing.

I'm not being political because I did not mention any political party.

I'm not being overtly racist because I did not identify any race.

But I wouldn't give you any price for correctly guessing which kind of monkey that fucker was.

If you think 2016 was bad, 2017 will be worse!

I think it's safe to say 2016 was bad for the economy and the market.

It will be worse this year. It could extend to 2018 or even 2019.

1MDB is the clear sign of the government losing it's way. Felda is in trouble. The ringgit is not seeing it's bottom yet.

Today, The Malay Mail reported that it's factory output now down 21 months running. This is remarkable because Malaysia has long passed it's import substitution of industrial development and it has not in a coordinated way developed it's climb up the value chain particularly in the technological development.

The difference is glaring when comparing the automotive manufacturing between Thailand and Malaysia. Thailand has invited foreign motor industries to set up plants there while Malaysia went the Proton way.

The mistake in the last 50 years of managing the economy based solely on uplifting the Malay pride, I think, is coming home to roost.

Property overhang stood at "11,316 [units at the end of 2015] and these were worth RM5.9 billion, up by 16.3% in volume and 56% in value from those in 2014.

Note: [The government has defined overhang units as properties that are completed and issued with Certificates of Fitness for Occupation (CFO) or Temporary Certificates of Fitness for Occupation (TCFO), but remain unsold despite having been put on the market for at least nine months.]

These are already sitting there for more than 9 months and I am assuming that majority of them are Bumi lots reserved for the Melayu, and half of overhang units are homes priced at RM300,000 and below. See the problem?

"According to the National Property Information Centre (Napic), 18,908 of the 81,894 units of residential and commercial properties launched in the first quarter of 2016 have yet to be sold.

These unsold properties amount to RM9.4 billion and it is an increase of 15.9 per cent from the value of unsold units in the fourth quarter of last year." as reported by The Malay Mail.

"Napic also said the number of unsold units under construction recorded an increase of 28.6% to 68,760 units due to large numbers of unsold condominium and service apartment units." says another report.

Another report commented with respect to rental rates: "Low demand and oversupply of high-rise residential units may see rental rates drop by as much as 30 per cent over the next two years."

It is now a common knowledge that banks are tightening their wallet and apply strict lending policy. The word on the street is that as much as 60% of the housing loan applications are rejected.

I am looking to buy a small unit as weekend home in Subang area. Either condo or soho. So whenever my wife and I are in KL, we can stay there. Other times it can be rented out as AirBNB short term rental. In a way, the rental yield has to make sense. Otherwise, I might as well put my money in REIT that yields 7% - 9%.

For the yield to maintain, say at 4%, given the existing rental, then the price of the property has to come down.

So, let's take the unit that I'm interested in, Subang Soho or One Soho.

This is located in SS19 Subang and very near Empire Shopping Gallery and Subang Parade. It has good access to Federal Highway where it can take me to Batu Tiga toll and onward back to Seremban.

And it's close to my brother's house.

It has small enough units to chose from (because I don't need such a big place) and the total purchase price will be below RM400,000. I will be buying it in cash so I'm not affected by bank's lending restriction.

Property Details

Name: Subang SoHo (also known as One SoHo)
Address: Jalan SS19/1, 47500 Subang Jaya, Selangor
Developer: Sendi Bangga Development (a subsidiary of Titijaya Group)
Completion Date: Oct 2012
Type: SOHO
Tenure: {Tenure}
No. of Blocks: 2
No. of Storey: 16
No. of Units: 448
Built-up: 685 - 1,289 sf
Maintenance Fee: RM0.35 psf
Launch Price
685 sf: From RM237,000 - RM310,000
Corner: From RM350,000
Subsale Price: RM450,000 - RM900,000
Rental: RM3 psf onwards

I'm looking at the smallest unit of 685sf. At launching it was priced at RM346 psf. Current rental in the market is between RM1,400 to RM1,800. I will take RM1,500 as reference rental.

If you have bought the unit during the launch, your current rental yield is 6.38% (RM18,000 - RM2,877 for maintenance fee / RM18,000). I will ignore the other incidental expenses.

This is excellent yield. Even if you drop the rental to RM1,200/month, your yield at this price is still 4.86%.

So what is my target entry price assuming I want a yield of 4%, even though I don't intend to rent it out? It make sense to find a reference purchase price to make sure I get a good value for my money.

A quick calculation showed that my purchase price should be between RM288,000 and RM378,000. The low end is based on perceived rental rate of RM1,200/month less maintenance fee, the top end is based on rental of RM1,500.

So, if the unit drops to RM378,000 then I can safely pull the trigger.

Will it happened in the next 3 years? I think it will.

If you look at the subsale price indicated by Propwall, it's RM450,000. But the price has dropped by 9.3% at current market of RM408,000 advertised in Mudah.com. If I do it now, I think I can negotiate down to RM398,000.

So that is not too far from my trigger price of RM378,000. Another RM20,000 and we are there.

If I can get one at RM320,000 to RM350,000 I will be very happy. I'm not into flipping and I planned to hold it for long term so this will turn out to be a good investment.

The only downside is the property is classified as commercial due to it's Soho status, therefore my electricity and water will be charged at commercial rate. I wonder if Unifi will charge me commercial rate as well (I think they will).

Anyway, if you're in similar situation as I'm, you should start monitoring properties for sale.

Happy hunting.