Orange Garden, 3-storey semi-detached and terrace homes nestled within a contemporary gated and guarded community. It offers scenic landscaped gardens and fun-filled recreational facilitities which includes a residence clubhouse with swimming pool. This development is strategically located along Jalan Kampung Benggali in Butterworth, Penang.

Property Project : Orange Garden
Location : Jalan Kampung Benggali, Butterworth, Penang
Property Type : 3-storey semi-d & terrace
Tenure : Freehold
Indicative Price: RM689,000 onwards
Total Units : 139 (terrace), 10 (semi-detached)
Developer : Tah Wah Group

An artist’s impression of the Seri Tanjung Pinang phase two project showing bridges connecting Straits Quay and Gurney Drive to the proposed island.

The 1.7km Gurney Drive will sport a new, greener look under the proposed Seri Tanjung Pinang (STP) phase two reclamation project to be undertaken by Eastern and Oriental (E&O) Bhd.

It will incorporate some 20ha of greenery area including a new parkland, water features, a cycling route and palm-tree lined promenade.

There will also be a 400m-long bridge connecting Gurney Drive to a new 307ha man-made island to be developed in the same project.

The bridge will be close to a popular seafood restaurant near the Gurney Drive roundabout.

Penang Works, Utility and Transportation Committee chairman Lim Hock Seng said the 53ha of land in Gurney Drive to be reclaimed by the group for the state government would mostly be used for recreation and not for commercial purposes.

“The seafront promenade will be wider and there will be more lanes on the road after the project.

“Now the road has three lanes. It will be extended to become nine to 10 lanes with parking space as well.

“Besides a new cycling route and jogging track, there may be a few eating outlets but there will be no high-rise buildings.

“This is the proposed concept. There may be changes but rest assured, the land will not be for commercial purposes,” he said when contacted yesterday.

On the portion of reclaimed land on Gurney Drive, 20.23ha will be government reserve land, 21ha for open spaces and buffer area, 6.87ha of land for the expressway and 4.85ha for amenities, utilities or infrastructure.

It will be fronting Gurney Reach, the new name for the seafront promenade on the man-made island to be created in the sea between Gurney Drive and Straits Quay in Tanjung Tokong.

On Saturday at a public dialogue in Straits Quay, E&O managing director Datuk Terry Tham had said Gurney Reach, which will complement Gurney Drive, would have open air cafes, restaurants and either an aquarium or a museum.

The dialogue was held with affected residents and relevant government agencies.

The aim was to obtain feedback on the project that will be incorporated into the detailed environmental impact assessment.

The island, part of a RM25bil project to be completed over the next 20 years, will be linked to Straits Quay and Gurney Drive by two 400m-long bridges.

The project will be carried out by Tanjung Pinang Development, jointly owned by E&O Property (Penang) with a 78.8% stake and the Penang Government with 21.2% stake.

The other government reserve land in the project are a 24.28ha plot in phase two of STP (to begin in Tanjong Tokong) and 8ha for the Penang Outer Ring Road.

Source: StarProperty.my

GEORGE TOWN: Eastern & Oriental Bhd plans to develop residential and commercial projects worth RM25bil over the next 20 years for Seri Tanjung Pinang’s (STP) second phase. And this will generate some 15,000 jobs.

Group managing director Datuk Terry Tham said the ratio of commercial to residential properties for the entire scheme would be one to two.

“There would be some 28.45 million sq ft of mixed-use commercial area allotted for retail, office, serviced apartments and a tourism hub with seafront promenade, museum and an international marina for the entire 307ha reclamation scheme,” he said after a public dialogue on STP’s second phase’s detailed environmental impact assessment report at the Straits Quay in Tanjong Tokong here yesterday.

Tham added that E&O would ensure that some 30% of the residential properties in STP were priced from RM42,500 onwards.

“Some 12,000 residential properties will be developed for the second phase, of which 32% will be low-rise properties of four-storeys, 45% medium-rise, and 23% 10-storey high buildings,” he said.

On open spaces, Tham said there would be 26.7ha of land for green development projects and 8.9ha of landscaped buffer in between the second phase and 16.5ha of open space in Gurney Drive.

“The illustrative master plan will be submitted to the local authorities following the approval of the detailed EIA report’s approval from the Department of Environment at Federal-level.”

Tham said reclamation would be carried out in two stages. “The first involves reclaiming 102ha of land which would take about 30 months to complete and 10 years to develop. The second stage involves reclaiming the remaining 205ha and this would take four years to complete and 14 years to develop,” he added.

Tham said the group would cede to the state government 24.2ha of land in the second phase for the undersea tunnel and other supporting infrastructure projects.

“We will also reclaim for the state government 53ha of land in Gurney Drive of which 20.2ha will be used for open spaces.”

Source: StarProperty.my

GEORGE TOWN: Despite a softer property market in the first quarter of this year, Penang’s residential sector has continued to claim the lion’s share, or 75 per cent, of the total 5,756 properties transacted.

A research report by Henry Butcher Malaysia Penang shows that the total number of properties transacted in the first quarter of this year fell 18 per cent compared with the 7,007 transactions recorded in the same period last year.

“However, despite a drop in the number of transactions, the total transacted value of residential properties increased by 3.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2013, due to the relatively strong demand from home purchasers as well as property investors, coupled with the limited supply of residential stock in the market,” the report stated.

The Penang government last year imposed a guideline on the minimum purchase price of property for foreign investors.

On Penang island, the minimum prices for strata-titled and landed properties have been capped at RM1 million and RM2 million, respectively. For permanent residents, however, the existing limit of RM500,000 is retained.

Applicants under the Malaysia My Second Home programme are not affected by the new ruling as the minimum price remains at RM500,000, but with a limit of two units only.

Transactions involving foreigners numbered 774 in 2010, or 2.98 per cent of the total, while in 2011, there were 890 transactions, or 2.26 per cent of the total.

Stating that property investors are beginning to revive or resume their investment interests in Penang, which were placed on hold for about one-and-a-half years due to uncertainties over the date of the 13th General Election, the report further noted that astute investors are of the opinion that buying properties in choice locations in Penang appears to be the preferred mode of wealth creation.

“Consumer confidence of both local and international investors on Penang’s properties remain buoyant and, therefore, Penang’s property market is foreseen to be filled with more excitement soon.”

The report, however, cautioned that downside risks such as the global economic uncertainty, natural disasters and local political developments as factors that must be watched closely.

Source: Business Times

Investment analysts reassured by this statement although they are cautious about potential Budget 2014 announcements.

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) will not introduce new measures to curb household debt as the current ones are sufficient and have produced the expected results, said Governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz (pic) yesterday. This was reported by Bernama after Zeti announced the country’s second quarter growth.

Recent reports cited industry sources expecting more measures aimed at “cooling” the property market, such as further tightening the loan-to-value (LTV) ratio for property purchases and the removal of the developer interest-bearing scheme (DIBS) in the fourth quarter or next year by Bank Negara.

“No, we have not introduced any such measures. We have already announced the measures much earlier and those are the ones in place and we have already seen that the household debt has moderated slightly.”

On July 5, BNM announced a set of measures aimed at curbing excessive household debts: a 10-year cap on the tenure for personal loans, a 35-year limit on both housing and non-residential property loans, as well as a prohibition on pre-approved personal financing products.

“We did not want to see a significant tightening that will cause an over-adjustment because we are depending on consumption activity which is sustainable and therefore, however, we did not want to see household indebtedness that was not sustainable that would, going forward, undermine our growth prospects,” Zeti said.

At this stage, BNM would continue to monitor closely the level of indebtedness and continue with its financial literacy awareness campaigns so that household financials were better managed, she said.

Kenanga investment research analysts commented that they are “positively reassured” by Bank Negara’s statement.

“This firms our theory that overly drastic measures on the sector may affect GDP growth, have a negative cascading effect on the banking system if asset values are affected and more importantly hinders the government’s ability to monetize their infrastructure projects (e.g. rail plus property for LRT and MRT) and their landbanks (e.g. TRX).”

Kenanga also mentioned concerns on the upcoming Budget 2014. “Potential measures include RPGT hikes which we opine is less detrimental to new launches (i.e. listed developers sales) vs. secondary market. Others include stamp duty hikes.

“Nonetheless we are likely to maintain ‘overweight’ on the sector because we believe there will be strong demand for new launches by virtue of better financing terms while many will try to hedge ahead of inflation caused by potential GST, subsidy rationalizations and implementation of Build-Then-Sell schemes. However, we qualify that this is caveat on no major changes in our House strategy.”

“We expect property stocks to rebound today from this reassuring news although we advice investors to be mindful of the Oct-2013 headwinds (UMNO elections and Budget 2014).

“However, if Budget 2014 property measures is not overly severe (e.g. seen in last 3 years), we can expect the sector to rally after a short knee-jerk/breather period.”

Source: StarProperty.my