MY house

One of my 2013 resolution is to buy/ design/ renovate and move into MY house. Of these steps, the first one - buy a house is the toughest. You need to do lots of window-shopping, survey, projection on development 5 years down the road, abit of luck, patience and be bold when opportunity arises. I will include all expenses incurred in the blog today for future reference.

MY house is located opposite Bkt Jalil Recreational Park. Pro and Cons listed below:

Cons:
- Only one car park, not covered. - scarce car park.
- Facing west - sun in the afternoon
- New school opposite.
- 10 years old -
- Exterior look quite old tradition.
- Water patch in the small room.

Pros:
- Future LRT station 600m away.
- Close to major highways (Bkt Jalil Expressway/ Kesas/ MEX/ BERRAYA/ KL Seremban)
- Recreational park within walking distance. (Cooling and refreshing environment)
- Surrounded by high end condo - Treez, KM1
- Opposite is the upcoming mall dubbed Pavillion 2 by Malton-Ho Hup JV.

I fall in love with the unit at the first sight, mainly due to the good condition and newly painted wall, despite sun shining directly in the afternoon. Offer price is RM340K, Knowing how hot the properties were in the area, we merely negotiated to RM330K. After checking with few bank loans, (UOB/OCBC and Public Bank), only PBB offered 40 years and BLR-2.4% and was quickly accepted. Upon signing S&P, the remaining portion of the purchase price (90%) must be paid within 90days, else the seller has the right to charge interest. For my case, S&P signed on 8th April 2013, but the full loan only disbursed in August, luckily the seller is kind enough not to charge me interest.

In this project, i keep track with every cents possible i spent, total spend to date is RM93,644. The breakdown of spending is as pie chart below. The deposit (10% of SPA price) accounted to 35% of total spending, while furniture at 25% (RM93,644 x 25% = RM23,411)  is in the runner up.

Do bear with me for the load of figures and statistic i am going to share, but it will be indeed useful for future reference in buying/renovating your house in future.

1. Furniture :
Main items to watch :
1. The purchase of Electrolux Washing Machine and Dryer from warehouse sales at 40% below market price. Original price of Washing Machine EWF10741 and Dryer EDV605 is at RM2,900. But we manage to get both for only RM1,820. The only downside is only 6 months warranty of the two items. To enjoy such discount, one have to be fully prepared (with model number interested at your finger tips) and go early on the ELECTROLUX warehouse sales day (refrigerator all taken up within the first 45 mins). This is our lifetime experience of making two electrical appliances purchase within such short time frame!

Check out their FB page @ Electrolux Home appliances Malaysia for the dates.

Itemized furniture purchases.

2. Aircon - RM3,200/ Renovation: RM22,670

I decided to install aircon in every room and include living room there are 4 units. With the 2 units inherited from the seller, i installed another 2 new units at living room and master room. (Not sure whether this is the right choice to have so many air con)

Teck is my main contractor, I won't say his skill is superb, but still acceptable with few defects/flaws below:

a. Some tiles in the toilet and kitchen were empty inside when knocked, when asked he rest assured me that they won't fall.
b. Light switch behind sofa is isolated, even though i already told upfront to aggregate it together with all lights.
c. The switch for outside light should be outside.
d. He insisted i had small switch instead of big switch.
e. Kitchen plugs were too high, resulted in the wall unit had to be shifted higher.
f. Master room sink is still unstable even though reminded him multiple times.

I admitted that i was partially responsible for some mistakes above, but due to my indecisiveness, notwithstanding the lack of experience in house deco, hence he had the upper hand of leading me. Next time, i will do better. In short, he is cheap but not the best!

Itemized air-con expenses.

Itemized contractor expenses.

Despite the abovementioned, now MY house is ready. I officially moved in on 1st December 2013, after 9 months of the long awaited purchase (I paid 3% to the agent on 9th March 2013,).

Whenever i reflected of the accomplishment, the largest credit  goes to my dear wife-to-be. It won't be possible without her relentless support, despite arguments at times, and patches up quickly. It might not be the largest/ most luxurious unit town, but it is definitely a warm and comfortable nest for us to dock and relax.