[Part 1] My First Property: The Journey, Surprises, Decisions

*Upon writing this article, the event happen more than a month before

At age 28, I was jobless for 2 weeks until I received a call for a job offer. So I packed my bag and move to away from my parents. The thoughts of buying a house never cross my mind. As I was quite happy just renting a room that cost RM960 per month. It allowed me to save a lot of cash (and spend a lot of them too). Breaking cost for renting this room:

Deposit: 1month(RM800)+ 1month(RM800)

Master Bedroom (Fully Furnished) include a bathroom

Monthly: RM800

Carpark: RM160

Electric & Water bill: Included

Internet (10Mbps): Included

Total: RM960

6 months of renting, I started to feel unpleased and uncomfortable such as; 1. The wardrobe closet was broken since the day I moved here but the home owner refused to change it (or repair it). 2. the mattress started to feel uncomfortable and it began hurting my back. 3. Unpleasant experience on sharing house utilities with other housemate.  4. Condo Management service was very bad. And last; 6. Low in space to store my items. The frustration grew and grew till it reached the boiling point where I said “THATS IT, I’m going to buy a house! Having my own space, my own privacy and I can do whatever I want!”.

I started my property hunt journey by searching at mudah.my, iproperty.com, propertyguru.com  and propsocial.com. There were hundreds and thousand of list but the property I’m looking for must be within 40km from my and during my initial research, I’ve learned a couple of things going through hundreds of property listed in these platform:

1. Per Square Feet, Square Foot
2. Dimension
3. Freehold and Leasehold
4. Strata and Master Title
5. Residential and Commercial Title
6. 0% Deposits, Rebates.

I found 3 properties that match my liking and since this was my first experience, I decided to take this chance to learn so I contacted 3 property agent. I’ve arranged a meet up with 3 agents from 3 different location for one day. The first one was in Rawang, second in Seremban and the last one was in Semenyih.

When I met him, my Initial impression was, “This person must be loaded, driving a Mercedes GLA car. Property agents must be filthy rich” haha LOL.  he gave me his brochure and brings me to the showroom. We went walk around in an empty showroom first and then went inside a fully furnished showroom. He explained the detail of the house.

1. The size: 20 x 65.
2. RM460,000 after 10% “discount”, use it for 10% deposit
3. Leasehold
4. Complete at year 2021
5. Developer: MahSing.
6. RM15,000 as an add-on for small renovation
7. Phase 1
8. A few unit left for sale
9. And a discount for bumiputera

After walking around the showroom while listening to his explanation,  I was interested with the house until I was told it’s a leasehold. Why I’m not interested in Leasehold? For Leasehold, you only can hold on to your house for a certain period of time like 99 years or 999 years (depends). And that makes it hard to sell. My plan was to stay for 5-10 years and then sell it. And the management can impose restrictions like No Pets Are Allowed and No Making Noise.

I am not saying Leasehold unit a bad thing. There are other perks that home buyer should consider when buying a leasehold such as; Although you were given a certain period to hold onto the house but depending on the developer, you can extend it say from 99 to 199 years. Next, Developer and Management will take care of the place better (but not to say better than the ones from freehold as it still depends on the management themselves). Last point, it’s cheaper than freehold unit.

Now I need to head to Seremban to meet my next agent which is quite far from Rawang. Okay, I did say I was looking a house that must be within 40km radius from my office. But people have been commute from Seremban to Selangor everyday to go for work. I am considering that whether I should buy one from Seremban or not. So, after an hour plus of driving, I met my agent and first he brings me to the property office(? I think) to show an arrangement for small replica of houses. What I remembered that he explained to me was;

1. From 20 x 75 to 22 x 75. And obviously I would go for 22 x75. Haha (LOL)
2. Range from 490k~ 700k+.
3. Hilltop
4. Freehold
5. And 10% discount which can be use for 10% deposit.
6. MEX 2 Highway will be complete in year 2021.
7. Matrix Concept Holding Sdn Bhd

The unit was BIG and I really like the design. And the price was good in my opinion. BUT I could not go with this unit as it was too far away from my workplace and I just can’t wait for MEX 2 high way to complete as the unit would probably complete in early 2020 so that would take me 1 year maybe to go from Seremban 2 to Petaling Jaya that can take more than an hour and half. That was the only downside. If not, I would pick this unit in a heart beat! Too bad….! The agent still contacted me though. I feel really bad for him that I was giving him high expectation… I’ve turned down his offer. And then I’m like, I shouldn’t feel bad about him, I should feel bad about myself if I immediately take his offer and being burden with dissatisfaction (if I feel I’m making a bad decision in a point in life).

Okay, next heading to meetup my next agent in Semenyih. It didn’t took that long droving there compare to driving from Rawang to Seremban. BUT I still need to wait like 2 hours as he was preoccupied with other client.

2 hours past, I met him, he first brings me to a subsale terrace unit size of (20×65 I think) and at RM500,000+. I asked if theres another unit that was under construction because I can’t immediately move in. For a subsale, you pay, sign S&P (and other documents) and then need to move in. You cannot wait like 6 months or more so you can plan really well what you actually wanted to do for the new house. Plus the design wasn’t that impressive.

We then went to the property developer’s office where theres a showroom unit nearby. He showed me a semi-d unit. And I was wow, it was GORGEOUS and SPACIOUS (coming from a first home buyer perspective, mind you). I couldn’t remember the size but the project name was called EcoHill, you can try and google it. I remembered that it’s under freehold by and that’s about it.

I’m like okay, “I want to buy this unit, I really want it”… but again, there was one downside that made me to shove away from this unit; I need to put 10% down payment because there was no 10% discounts option available. *shrugs*. I was terribly upset, because the unit ticks a lot of thing on my checklist but this ONE thing blew it away. They do offer 10% rebate though but you can’t get 10% rebate if you don’t put 10% down payment! Being upset, the agent asked me should I consider subsale, I said No… Then I went away with a disappointed looks….



After I arrived home, I look again through the property platform that I’ve mentioned earlier….

Writing this took days, so I had split it into 2 parts. Stay tune for part 2…