Johor Property

In our current economy it is difficult to sell a home individually or on the “real estate market”. No one would want to put their “property for sale” and make the selling of their home or “property” any more difficult by doing things unintentionally that would decrease their property value and also decrease their chances even of selling their property. Property owners who want or need to sell their property want to do all they can in to make their property’s value increase. One big thing that will decrease your property value and may prevent you from selling is the neighborhood. If there are many “house for sale” signs or foreclosure signs in yards this will bring your property value down, as these homes no doubt will lack the ownership care enhancing neighboring homes. Where there are empty homes there many times is found squatters and vandalism of the empty homes. If there are too many homes in the neighborhood that you are considering that have signs saying “apartment for sale” or “apartment for rent“, beware that rentals in itself will drive down your future home’s value. A noisy neighborhood is another big factor, such as is it near an airport where planes are flying over the homes at all hours? Is there a local fire department, police department, a hospital, or a long term care facility near by? Is the home located on a very busy street or noisy highway?

Other things that may decrease property value are:

. High crime rate in the neighborhood
. Sex offenders in close proximity to your home
. How many homes in the neighborhood are in disrepair
. Are there empty businesses near the home
. How near is the home to public services as this will increase value
. Bright and gaudy paint on walls
. Gaudy wallpaper or badly applies wallpaper
. Broken or peeling floor tiles, or badly stained rugs
. Cracked walls with bad replastering of cracks
. Outdated lighting fixtures
. Outdated wiring and plumbing
. Clutter on the outside property, and neglected lawn, garden and or flower beds
. Clutter inside the home or a dirty home
. Offensive home odors, such as pet or smoke odors
. A dirty and unkempt home
. Installing cheap storm windows
. No or little insulation or insulation plugs on outside walls that have not been covered
. Poor roof repair
. High property taxes
. Leaky basements, cracked foundations, presence of black mold
. Badly settled foundation

There is no better way to invest one’s money then in the real estate market. But, one must be very careful and look at all the things that can drive put property on a downward spiral, causing the investor to lose much of their investment, such as cheap and tacky home improvements.

Continued from Motivational Decorations for Your Home: Part 1

Statues and sculptures

There are bound to be some people who motivate you a lot. Some people may actually get the sculpture or the statue of the person who inspires them most, and put them in the hallway to serve as a daily reminder for that boost before going off for work.

Statues and sculptures may appeal to some of people especially if you see the significant emotional appeal to you personally. However, for motivational purposes, it will be good to find sculptures that are more positive, such as that of a successful icon, rather than getting one which might show a sorrowful face. Remember that you are putting it at your home, so it should be motivating you to give you more positive and vibrant energy throughout your property instead of pulling down your morale.

Pictures

Many people say that a picture tells a thousand words. But again, different people may interpret a same picture differently.

Take, for example, a lovely painted picture of a huge sailboat in the middle of sea. Some people may interpret it as a motivational idea of adventure, standing against the rough seas and to go against the current, sailing smoothly according to the movements of the wind. However, another person may interpret it as a rough spot, a very demotivating mood set by the atmosphere of the dark blue sea. It can have two totally different feel altogether, and depending on the type of person you are, you should try to get an inspirational piece that will strike your happiness chord right away instead of allowing room for too much interpretations.

Crystals

About a decade ago, there was the craze about using crystals in real estate for fengshui purposes. There are hundreds of natural crystals from around the world, and in the world of fengshui, crystals are supposed to draw positive energy together and project it to its surrounding to give us better control of our lives, towards the direction of goodness and prosperity which most of us are always seeking for.

The most common types of crystals for the home are amethyst and quartz. These stones may come in very large pieces, and amethyst is especially profound with the mini crystal hill that it is always found in.  The purple stone is supposed to bring the energy of calmness and patience to an aggressive person, while the yellow quartz is supposed to help draw in prosperity to the owner.

Scrolls

The last popular item especially in Chinese homes is scrolls. There are usually some lovely calligraphic writings on them, sometimes it can be a single word that serves as a reminder to the person, or sometimes it can be a poem of some sort. The interpretations can be universal, or it can also be personal to you, but it does not matter, as long as it has a strong appeal to motivate you.

Our home is the place where we spend significant amount of time in, and the mood which we set for the home influences our motivation levels without us realising about it. Our home should be decorated in a way which inspires us to be energetic and enthusiastic about a new day. Decorating your home can also be a boost to your home’s value when preparing to offer the property for sale. Have you intentionally decorated your home this way?

There are many ways which people design their homes for that extra “energy” boost. Some people call it fengshui, while others may be using simple logic instead. Let us look at the different motivational decorations for our homes and its influence on real estate.

Colours

The easiest and probably most basic motivational or mood developer item that you can use at home is colour. Your walls, ceilings and furniture colours ideally should be in matching colours with each other to enable a calming effect to you when you get home from a hectic day at work.

Many interior designers and architects stick to a few basic earth tone colours, matching with white, and simple designs for that modern style in their work. There is the use of basic simple lines, and there is not much floral pattern in the present design works despite the return of floral wallpapers. However, motivational colours are not just for the sake of building designs.

Some people may intentionally get red colour furniture to boost their enthusiasm and the ‘fire’ within them. They need such colours to jump start their day, probably because they need to be in the position of leadership. Some people may use yellow instead of red, and they get their inner fiery started up early in the day just to make themselves more powerful at work. Some others may choose cool colours around the property such as blue or green, and these colours effectively cool down their bad tempers, making their start of the day with a lot more patience. White is also a common colour, and it helps to clear a person’s thoughts for better decision making.

Stay tuned for Motivational Decorations for Your Home: Part 2

Continued from Finding the Perfect Home: Part 1

Bedrooms

How many bedrooms do you need for your home? You will need to make this consideration based on the number of people who are staying with you. Typically, a lot of people missed out on this point due to budget and location, and the normal, average number of bedrooms which a home has is three. Is it enough for you?

The decision can be very personal. One couple, for example, decided that they will need a bedroom for themselves, a bedroom for the wife’s mom, a room where the couple may share as a home office for the husband and a study for the wife, and of course a couple of bedrooms for the children. Also, the husband also promised a special prayers room for the wife due to the different deities which they worship in terms of religious needs. You may imagine that this couple may need a bungalow which has at least five rooms, and the AV room converted into the prayer room for the wife.

Bathrooms

This seem to be trivial, but in reality, it may mean a lot in the long run. You may have children who need to get to school, clashing their bathroom times with you when you need to rush for work. If you have only one bathroom, you need to time yourselves very well just to be sure that your child and you will not be late for school or for work. Also, couples might even be fighting with each other each morning for the use of the bathroom, which is not going to be healthy for the relationship in the long run.

Number of Storeys

Usually, single storey homes in Malaysia has a standard of three, maximum four, bedrooms, with the option of probably two bathrooms. For houses which are two storeys or more, there can be the options of up to, maybe five bedrooms. Sometimes, you might want to be sure that you have a proper bedroom (not a maid’s bedroom) on the ground floor if you have elderly parents living with you, if your house is two or three storeys high.

These ideals which will make your perfect home should be thought about, and carefully decided when you search for a house or apartment for sale. Let’s not shortchange yourself in the process.

Anyone can afford to be choosy when it comes to picking a new home. Whatever your relatives or even the real estate agent says, you should never think that your budget is too low to allow you to get a perfect home for yourself. Of course, you need to be realistic and not hope to get a landed property with a boutique swimming pool in the garden if your budget is only helping you get an apartment, but you might actually get an apartment with a swimming pool as part of its facilities.

When you start looking for your perfect home, make a list of the things which you must have in the house as the most basic criteria so that you will not miss out on some of the most important things you must have in the house to make your truly satisfied with the purchase. Your list will be different from the list which your colleague or best friend make, because it is your own desires, your individual demands.

Location

You may start by deciding whether you want your home to be within the city centre or in the satellite towns nearby. What lifestyle are you looking for? It depends very much on whether you are a city dweller, or you would prefer a more relaxed lifestyle after work hours. The satellite towns or suburbs are generally cheaper than if you were to pick a home in the city centre, but it will probably mean more commute time for you to and from work. It may also mean that you are probably a little further away from restaurants, schools and shopping malls. However, staying in the city centre is probably a little noisy especially during weekends, and it can have higher crime rates too.

Price

Very often, your budget is a huge consideration. It is all about how much downpayment you can afford, and how much loan you can get from the bank. Get yourself pre-qualified by speaking to the banker, see how much the bank is able to provide you based on your income. This will help you maximize on how much money you can spend on buying property for sale.

With the budget ready in mind, you can then start to shortlist the homes based on the pricing and the location which you already had in mind. Very often, homes on the roads in front of busy, noisy streets may actually be cheaper although it may also resell at a lower price too. If your bedroom is going to be facing the streets, you might also get lesser quality sleep.

Stay tuned for Finding the Perfect Home: Part 2

Malaysia’s three decade adventure of transforming itself from a simple agricultural nation into a manufacturing and heavy industries superpower is one good example of a successful backwater nation-economic powerhouse metamorphosis. The country’s diverse economic makeup together with its uncanny ability to draw foreign investments fueled by Japanese investors are attributes that promises a strong growth rate for decades to come. And in the center of all these is Johor, strategically located south of Malaysia. Also known as the “Abode of Dignity”, Johor became the recipient of the Iskandar Development Region (IDR), poised to become the country’s most developed and sustainable region by international standards. The IDR sits directly in the center of Asia’s burgeoning economic growth centers such as Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo and that of India and its neighbors.

Because of this, land development and influx of labor had already commenced operations in Johor, including those minor value-added industries and the offering of neighboring Indonesia’s enormous labor resources to fulfill that vision of growth in the region. The government is giving its full support in the implementation of the plans, management coordination, financing and regional promotion to guarantee IDR’s success.

The work generated by the Iskandar Development Region which was launched late in 2005 propelled the increase in economic activities that translated to the rising demands for the housing sector, especially in the Tebrau and Skudai regions. The Johor Property market woke up after suffering setbacks from the recession and is now nurturing confidence stimulated by improved conditions and the economy bouncing back. All of these became possible due to the introduction of infrastructure by the IDR. Literarily, all businesses and property acquisitions activities are now pointed at Johor. It is prepared to profit from the continuing infrastructure projects which will be sustained in the future.

Now, Johor had become a common household name because of the ever-increasing number of valuable property projects, with some of them already in the implementation stages. In the private sector, huge projects like the $5.15 billion South Key on the former Majidi camp site and the Lido Boulevard Development, together with the state government’s long-term development projects by its investment agencies, are now molding the new image and value of the Johor Property.

With the way the trend is going, properties in Johor are very promising. The potential for growth and development is too great to devalue. Thanks to the intervention of the IDR, these properties will become like goldmines in the very near future.