2010 Real Estate Congress

Additional point number 8.

On Sunday, 4th of July 2010, I had the chance to attend the 2010 Real Estate Congress organized by WMA at Cititel Hotel, Midvalley. The speakers were Milan Doshi and 2 of his past students, Nancy and Prudence. I attended it for free because I had registered for Milan's 3 days workshop. Otherwise, it would have cost almost RM300 per person.

Nancy and Prudence has made it big through property investment. They have more than RM10 million in property loans each. Milan, being their guru of course is of similar wealth. The congress mainly was about motivation by the two Milan's past students and how they started and made the millions through property investment. Milan himself presented about the need of having 3 to 5 million in property loans in order to retire comfortably in the next 5 years.

These are some points that I got from the one day event:

1. Shah Alam will soon have a Jaya Jusco shopping mall located somewhere nearby Tesco Xtra. This development should add some value to properties nearby.

2. In order to make it big in property investment, commercial property is the way to go. Milan and his students made it big because they invested in commercial properties. From their presentation, some of the profits made through commercial properties are really out of this world. But of course one should take baby steps first before jumping to commercial properties.

3. I learnt that we can actually sell our properties under construction. There are ways to do it and that really made me think whether...... hmmmm...

4. Try to buy niche properties especially commercial properties. Examples are corner units and units facing the main road. Those kind of properties can command higher resale values.

5. The mindset that I really need to change is that take property loans as long as you can with no intention to actually settle the loans. Refinance the property every 3 to 5 years to pull out some cash for other investments.

6. If you have 1 or 2 property loans and you are having difficulties in servicing them, that is your problem. But if you have lots of property loans and having difficulties servicing them, it becomes the banks' problem. They will try to find a solution to the problem if of course you have been a good paymaster to them.

7. At the event, I came across Mr. Esa, the blog owner of Terra Nusa. My failure is to actually expand my own network. I came back from the event without actually making any new friends or established new contacts. Since property investment is more about networking and human relation, I'd better start working on this weakness of mine in order to be successful in property investment.

8. At one stage of your property investment journey, its better to have a portfolio comprising of commercial properties rather than high end condominiums. The logic is, the expatriate community in Malaysia is dwindling. The most obvious indication is lesser foreign direct investments (FDI) coming in. The only people who can afford to rent high end condos are these people because mostly, their company is the one paying for the rental. It is unlikely that a normal Malaysian citizen would want to rent these places. Supply is aplenty in the city centre but the community is shrinking. So you can be sure that one day supply will exceed demand. When that time comes, the tenants will be the one determining the rental price.