My Home Hunting Journey (Subsale)
I recently got the keys to my new home! It was a long journey to get to this point, but it was also a fulfilling one once I’ve gotten it. This is only half of the journey, as the other half involve doing up the place to be the ideal home – aka. ID and reno. But let’s leave that for another time.
In this post, I’d like to share my home hunting journey. The considerations are unlike hunting for an investment property as this is the property that I’d be staying in for the long term.
As a friend who is quite well-versed in property once said to me, “If you’re looking for a property that you are going to stay in, the most important thing in your consideration is that you like it. The rest are secondary.”
First things first…
Setting the initial criteria
There are so many properties in the market, so the first step is to set out the initial search criteria so I only focus on things that matter.
My initial search criteria:
- Price: Below RM500,000
- Size: Above 1,000 sqft
- Property type: Landed, Condominium
- Tenure: Freehold
- Area: Cheras (nearer to KL city), Sri Petaling/Bukit Jalil area, Greater KL area
- Others: ONLY subsale (due to my distrust of new development – as shared in Point 1 of this post)
Yes, I know, it’s a far-fetched goal. But that is the whole point.
Aim for the stars and see what we get. Then (here’s the most important part) adjust our criteria according to what the market can give us.
Starting the search journey
There are 2 ways to do this:
- Online listing platforms (Easier of the 2 and can be done from the comfort of own home)
- Physical searching (i.e. driving around the area and identify the location and property that catches our eyes)
Whilst I stuck to my criteria religiously for my initial search, I quickly come to realise that it doesn’t fit in the property market. Adjustments are required, but before I start adjusting my search criteria, I went to view a few properties first to get a feel of what a certain price / size / type, etc will get me.
Hence I started to shortlist a few properties with the following criteria:
- Pricing below RM500k & keeping the size above 800 sqft
- Size above 1,000 sqft & keeping the pricing below RM1 million
- Landed vs Condominium
- All freehold & subsale only
This leads to the next complication.
Viewing and dealing with property agents
Online listing by property agents are full of ****. There are a lot of fake advertising with inaccurate information on online listings. Their goal is to get us to call them so that they can show you all their inventories. So sifting through all the noise is a skill.
Now that I got that out of the way…
Luckily for me, I was not emotionally attached in my first round of searching because my purpose was just to get a feel of the property (price, size, location, etc) with no intention to purchase, yet. It takes quite a bit of time to view the different properties available in the market.
On top of that, after each viewing, there is some homework required to compare the property vs properties in the vicinity to identify if it is worth it or not.
There are a various things I needed to find out during this process:
- What is the right size for the long term?
- Get a feel of the layout and build up of the place.
- The convenience of that particular location – grocery shopping, food, accessibility, etc.
- How is the community and the neighborhood like?
- Check on the development surrounding the property
Back to the drawing board
It’s time to go back to the drawing board after 6 months of searching.
By the time I viewed my 10th property, I have a pretty good idea of what I want. Hence, my revised criteria:
- Price: RM500,000 – RM1 million
- Size: Above 1,000 sqft
- Property type: Condominium
- Tenure: Freehold
- Area: Sri Petaling (x Bukit Jalil)
- Others: ONLY subsale
Once I drawn up the revised criteria, things become much simpler and it was merely about getting the better deal in the market now.
I am also lucky to have cousins working as a property agent, so I contacted them to help me source for property based on the above criteria. I highly recommend getting someone you know (good enough) to do this for you for 2 main reasons:
- They will not con you
- Refer to no.1
View again and negotiate
Once I’ve shortlisted the property that I wanted, I made sure to view different units within the same property a few more times:
- In the morning
- At night
- When it rains
- When it is burning hot in the afternoon
At the same time, I started to negotiate on the pricing. This is an art based on comparable units that I have viewed & property in the vicinity as well as the condition of the property itself.
Once I managed to lock in the price for the unit that I wanted, it is time to undergo the purchase process.
By the time I concluded my hunt and started the buying process… it was close to 1 year.
Of lawyer, bank and cash outflow
To initiate the process, a deposit is required to be paid to the property agent to lock in the property.
Lawyer
Then, it is time to look for a lawyer to represent me to process the purchase. I got a referral from the agent who knows a lawyer who is familiar with the development that I am buying. I also got a tip from my agent that the fees can be negotiated to a certain pricing. That was quite helpful.
The lawyer is responsible to draft up the sales & purchase agreement (SPA) and the loan documents for the financing bank. So that’s 2 different set of fees.
Bank
At the same time, I also had to source for my mortgage financing. Get quote from a few bankers, pitch them against each other and see who gives the best rates. The usual stuff, which includes the MRTA/MLTA dilemma too.
I find it quite a relaxing journey once I’ve appointed my lawyer and banker. I just wait for them to tell me what document to sign and how much I need to pay.
Time taken
From appointing the lawyer to completion of the purchase it took roughly 7 months for me. The reason that it took so long was due to the lockdown in Malaysia and, for my case, the developer needed to provide the Memorandum of Transfer (MOT) to me. So the lawyer had to wait for the developer to open office (which took forever) before they can issue me the MOT to transfer the strata title to my name.
If things went smoothly, it was supposed to conclude within 3-4 months apparently. Huge delay.
Interior Designer and Renovation
When all these were happening, I also started sourcing for interior designer to help with doing up the place. The vendor was also very kind to allow access to the premise for the designers to take a look at the place and come up with quotation and suggestions. So I get to save some time here as it can run concurrently with the purchase process.
Getting the keys
At the end of the process, the lawyer will ensure that all management fees, utilities and other outstanding payments are settled before proceeding to the official conclusion via handover of the keys. I had to pay a differential sum here as the vendor had paid in advance the management fee as requested by the developer earlier in the process.
Once I settled the differential sum via a transfer of funds to the vendor, the lawyer arranged for the key handover to me. This marks the end of the purchase.
Post-purchase, the lawyer will proceed to change the ownership for Land Office and Indah Water. For us owners, we are responsible to change ownership of electricity, water and assessment tax as covered in my previous post here. The renovation can also begin!
Timeline and Final Thoughts
All in all, the entire hunting till concluding the purchase took me close to 2 years. This was due to various lockdowns in between that delayed the entire process. Without which, I’m quite sure it could be completed within a year.
This is my first experience of buying a home for own stay and which is also a subsale property. There were a lot of valuable experiences gained from this journey as you could see from the above.
Whilst the hunting journey ended, the next journey of renovation and furnishing has just begun! It is an exciting yet tiring journey that I’m sure will be very fulfilling in the end. Can’t wait to see the caterpillar (unfurnished home) turning into a beautiful butterfly (full-fledged home)!
