A Place to Call Our Own

Hello! I know, I know, it's been the longest time since I'd blogged... especially after I left my "6 Weeks in U.S." series dangling in mid-air... just after Day 2. :P (I'll try my best to continue from where I left off...)

Well, I was just... busy. Busy after Leo's homecoming, busy unpacking Leo's shipment stuff, busy with project work, and last but not least, busy house-hunting! For the past few weeks, we'd spent quite some time hunting for The One. And at long last, we settled on this. Finally, a place to call our own! :-) Let me present to you OUR future home:

IJM's Summer Place - where everyday's a Summer Holiday (I love the tagline! :P)

Artist Impression

The Summer Place is a new condominium project by IJM which is scheduled to be completed by 2010 year end. It is off the Jelutong Highway, between Georgetown and Bayan Lepas.

The soft launch happened two Saturdays back, at IJM's sales office. It was due to start at 10am, but people actually started queueing from 9pm the night before! I can't believe I did it too! (Well kind of, long story there...) I'd seen a HK movie a long long time ago when I was a kid, about HK residents camping overnight to get a flat (公屋). I suddenly understood how they must have felt. Leo said, Penangites have officially beat the Singaporeans in terms of kiasu-ism... but I guess, everyone must need a place to stay (居者有其屋)?

No kidding... look at the queue here (photo pinched from Percy's blog)... and yes, that's us, looking bored!

Buying a house is one of the biggest decisions in our lives. Although both positive and negative comments are abuzz, we still feel that this the best decision to make with our money.

The positives:
-Quality: Reputation of developer is good and past projects are of high quality and good management. Nice facilities, swimming pool is of extreme importance.
-Deliverable: Committed to deliver on time, construction still ongoing even at night.
-Location: Waterfront, seaview. Halfway to town, I'm getting bored of Bayan Lepas area anyway.
-Affordability: Promotions during softlaunch improves our cashflow.
-Good investment: If I decide in the end not to stay there, I should still be able to sell out at a good price considering the base price was low and choice units are few.

The negatives:
-Investment: Landfill, leasehold 99 years, value might drop after 10 yrs.
-Location: Nearby high-dense low cost flats, just next to Sg. Pinang, one of the 7 most polluted rivers in Malaysia, hot and sometimes smelly seabreeze, mosque and pasar malam<-solution: new road has been built to bypass low cost flat area, my unit facing poolview and not Sg. Pinang, aircon, I don't mind pasar malam and mosques, there's gonna be a church there too!

Well, as what my other friends who have bought a house tell me, there's no such thing as a perfect house. Just "Buy it and Love it"! So yeah, I agree. Perhaps after we do up our house to a dreamy white beach getaway concept, it would be perfect for us. And then we wouldn't mind the troubles of the world after we get home to our cosy enclave! Leo and I will officially be proud owners of a new Home after we sign the S&P agreement soon! :-)