Hi I am looking into property in Malaysia (Malacca Straits Water Bungalows), its quiet unique because the apartments are built on sticks over the water. It offers just 210 units all with a 3-year, 8% per annum rental guarantee and a further 12-year leaseback scheme offering 75% of the NET room rate per night to the investor. You also get to use it for 10 days a year with the guarantee or it can be bought for full time occupancy. Would like to know anyones thoughts on this market etc.. I will need about 40k investment for the type I am looking at, but I am looking into a refinance option at the end of the build period where I could refinance at 85% LTV and the property should of increased by then also, so I could get most of my inital investment back.

Gerard Hi. I bought an off plan apartment in KL this year and looked at another one of the water bungalows projects and 'The Palm.' One thing to watch with the long leases is what the NET means - they have a habit sometimes of describing the return they get from a rental operator as the return (even thorugh this might only be say 50% of the gross income.) So you need to know what share of the gross receipts you will get. Also, beware of 15 year tie in's where the develooper's actual tie in is much shorter. The devil is in the detail on these. David

i am looking for a mortagage broker to go for an off plan in KL. do you have any contact or comment about that? regards, kambiz

Kambiz Hi. I used UOB Bank in KL, a chap called Goh Joon Kim was very helpful, good english, reasonable terms and they are very responsive. The offplan mortgage was set up by the developer (for Kiara 1) so not sure how you will get on if its independent. Best of luck David

thanks a lot David, but do you have any email or tel from the guy? by the way i didnt get what you mean about doubt in Kiara 1. Regards, kambiz

Hi Gerard, Best of luck with the investment, we have a property market profile report on Malaysia available for viewing on our downloads page which might help. http: / /www .propertysecrets .net /downloads /157 .html Regards Noreen

Hi Kambiz For KL mortgages, you will normally receive better rates from HSBC. It is common to apply for finance off the plan and I have done it many times. Contact is Yen Chui Fui [yenhsbc@yahoo.co.uk] Rgds Andrew

Andrew, thanks for the contact. cheers kambiz

I've been to Malaysia twice over the last 6 months, and as someone with a number of overseas properties, was obviously interested in thre market there. On one occasion I met a local developer on a social basis who was having a very hard time selling his properties. The market had seen significant downturns over the previous year, and he was quite depressed (his wife seemed quite worried as they'd just had a baby!).

I don't know the exact reasons for the downturn, although I do know the economy is doing fine, so perhaps things will turn around, but I would advise anyone investing there to do so after significant research.

Like many of you probably, I've been getting emails about the new phase of water bungalows at Port Dixon, the nearest resort-type place from KL.....so travelling back from holiday the other day found myself flying over them on the approach to KL airport.
Later i found myself outside the developers office in KL and went in and had a look at the "mock-ups" of the various bungalows and spoke to a few salespeople.
The quality looks superb, bungalows come fully furnished and will be managed by the "Legend" group of hotels for holiday rentals..giving the owner 10days per annum for personal use if desired.
Associated "club" building gives the additional facilities like gym, restaurants, sauna, communal pool etc..
65% have been sold to western investors in the first phase, giving occupancy levels of 55% up to now (mainly long weekend stayers from the City).
There's a new highway between Port Dixon and the airport which drops the travel time to about 15mins....to KL it's about an hour on the superb motorway network.

The current phase is selling well on the smaller units with only about 6 left available. Plenty of the superior larger units are available (currently about 150K UKP). The larger units are 2 storey, so the preferred upper storey gives you an open-air infinity pool and total privacy.
Same deal as before....8% return guaranteed by the operator for the first 3 years....but they were saying they could only arrange 60% LTV for foreign investors...not sure if that's a recent thing.

Has anybody invested in these, or found out anymore details about the rental contract and developer tie-in period? They were a bit cagey when i asked for that kind of detail initially.