Hopefully with the new economic model to raise the people’s income level, their higher consumption ability will be able to drive domestic consumption for a broad variety of products and services, and strengthen the economy further.

For the rural and urban poor, more proactive measures to help them own a home will be a good start. Despite the many housing packages offered by developers to promote sales and home ownership during the past year, the poor are still unable to fork out the minimum 5% or 10% downpayment for a property. These people depend on affordable public housing projects.

With growing urbanisation in many parts of Malaysia, there is a need to ensure that higher quality and better equipped public housing projects are built for the poor.

Although there are many low-cost and affordable housing projects, most of them have failed to provide an improved quality of life to the lower income population. This is because these no-frills projects have not been properly maintained and managed.

Perhaps we can emulate China and Hong Kong, which have initiated government-driven public housing projects to house their urban poor and displaced people.

As prices of properties have appreciated sharply in many first and second tier cities in China, local councils and private developers in Nanjing came together to address the issues of good property management and quality living for displaced villagers and squatters.

Each project is targeted for 5,000 homes in multi-storey blocks with each 5,000 home development equipped with a 24 classroom primary school and a 12 classroom kindergarten. There is also a service centre, a community day-care medical centre, a supermarket and some retail single-storey shop lots.

The utilities include an organic solid waste bio chemical disposal station, sewage recycling and waste water recycling system, solar energy heating system for all homes and centres, and photo voltaic cells for street lighting.

The entire concept was not only to solve the problem of providing affordable housing but to address the issue of post development property management.

The proposal was to fund the entire support system of the project with capital expenditure up front to reduce the long term management and maintenance cost.

Local councils previously were unhappy to manage designated low cost housing due to problems in collection of service charges and the resulting lack of services.

The urban planning model is based on self management by the residents.

The project does not allow vehicular traffic within the urban landscape but allows for courtyard style neighbourhoods with pedestrian and bicycle traffic only.

The project cost 2,232 yuan per sq metre based on the net residential area. The fund for the project was subsidised by the state government, a loan from the bank and part construction subsidy from the private contractor.

Last November, the Nanjing project was awarded the United Nations Special Contribution Award for Sustainable Urban Development by the United Nations.

It will be good for local industry players and governing authorities to emulate similar high quality standards to liven up our public housing projects.

Deputy news editor Angie Ng believes that thinking out of the box and being proactive will be the saving grace for many old existing problems in the world today.

The Star – 10th October 2009

IF you are buying a condo in Malaysia, here are a couple of things they don’t tell you in the advertisements.

The first thing is all about the condominium principle. This is a concept drawn together by Western idealists from crowded socialist European countries where they reckon they might have perfected the rules for all living on top of each other. Brief historical research would also reveal that the same countries also probably hold world records for civil war, communal strife and suppression of minorities but that is all confined to history and so should do nothing to dent their credibility.

Basically, the condominium principle is a bit of starry-eyed dogma inspired by the works of Karl Marx. It makes some sweeping assumptions about the desire of the individual to act only in the common good and dictates that any areas outside one’s own unit are all jointly owned for the benefit of the community. This can be anathema to any free-spirited Malaysian who sees the colonisation of his corridor and the ability to park anywhere any time as being merely matters for negotiation.

You can probably guess the second thing about the condominium principle, which is that it creates a small bureaucracy with far-reaching powers extending right up to one’s front door. It assumes that owners will clamour to donate their time and energy to this public service, whereas the more canny ones will of course stay at home, leaving the way open to those who are either naïve or power-crazy.

Malaysians are all generally quite smart so it is no surprise that joint management boards and management corporations are often run by Klaus or Pierre. Those owners who have declined involvement usually regard these committees with a certain amount of suspicion, surpassed only by their general contempt for the original developers who initially managed the property and then left with the accounts in a mess.

Malaysia now has nearly 10,000 stratified projects and some, particularly in the low-cost sector, are in serious decline, having reached a point where the arrears of service charge are so formidable that it is impossible to provide minimal service standards.

Despite recent amendments to the Strata Title Act, it is going to take some time to sort some of them out.

It is in this climate that the professional property manager finds himself invited to take control.

In fact, managing common areas is a task that can be performed without professionals by the joint management board or the management corporation which is formed when strata titles are issued. It can be achieved by directly employing suitable staff. However, that is very time consuming for the committee, which has to monitor these operations on a voluntary basis. They may also face unwanted legal liability if mistakes are made. The alternative is to engage the professional services of a registered valuer. Under Malaysian law, only registered valuers can provide property management services on a professional basis. They have the expertise, and they carry professional indemnity insurance.

These are the principal functions of the property management professional in a condo:

Financial Management: Budgeting, collection of service charges and sinking fund, payment of salaries and other recurrent operating costs and keeping proper records.

Maintenance: Routine inspections, monitoring the specialist service providers, scheduling preventive maintenance, dealing with day-to-day repairs.

Cleaning and landscaping: Monitoring and maintaining high standards.

Security: Formulate procedures, monitor and inspect.

House rules: Propose, communicate and implement a complete set of rules.

Insurance: Review, quantify and advise.

Reporting: Monthly and annual budgets and reports.

If you are in need of the professional services of a property manager, you can get a list of registered persons from the Institution of Surveyors, on 03-79551773 or 03-79569728. Alternatively, you can log on to the website of the Board of Valuers at
http://www.lppeh.gov.my/

Bon chance, Pierre.

-The writer is executive chairman of Regroup Associates Sdn Bhd property property consultancy.

The Star – 13th August 2009