Hi Hercs,
I have reserved a travellers unit located on the trunk. I am hoping to go ahead with the purchase but this will depend on wether or not i get accepted for the 70% mortgage.
This is an amazing development which offers loads of potential. it is the first of many phases to develop 22 km of coastline into the longest tropical caostline in Asia. The Malaysian government own 33% of the project, which is also being financed by swiss air and is being built by two of the largest construction companies in Malaysia.
As it is the first of many phases of development the success of this first phase will determine to a certain extent the success of the other phases because if the build quality, time keeping, solving of problems which crop up during both contruction and when the units are finished and a whole host of other factors arent up to scratch then the interest in the next phases by potential investers may be negatively affected.
Because it is the first of many phases the developers are setting the standard, which i believe points to a good development, and any problems which crop up are likely to be put right straight away.
There are a few things that have worried me:
The murky water around the development which i have been told is down to the construction work,
The 15 year guaranteed 8% rental is actaully a two year 8% minimum guarantee but they forecast this to rise so you could be looking at much more than this and this is the beauty of this development in that you know that with the government really getting behind this area to boost tourism, you'd expect the occupancy to be high. Occupancy rates in other similar developments which arent in as good a location are experiencing 0ver 85% occupancy levels,
Another worrying thing in the early days og the development release was the fact that the developers changed the amount of units from 366 to 328, but as we now know the demand is there, and i have also heard that this is because of environmental impacts the larger development would cause.
As for the 15%-20% capital appreciation sometimes these figures are plucked out of thin air and are often exaggerated figures stated to create more interest in certain projects, but i have had confirmation that the developers have said the development has risen by 8% already which is to be expected given that all the units had been sold in a month, the demand is defeinately there. Some people have already been offered substantially more then what they paid for their units.
I hope this helps and if anybody wants to add to, or doesnt agree with anything i have said then please say so.
Regards,
Nath