Developers, especially those who has a lot of land that they have paid a lot of money for would not want to hold those lands without doing anything on them. The holding cost is definitely high. Well, that’s the reason why when the developers buy new land, they will do their best to start developing it within 18 months. Another developer, Guocoland (M) Bhd shared in an article in TheStar that they want more land! This is definitely a positive news for the property market. Guocoland (M) Bhd is the property arm of Hong Leong group and its group managing director Datuk Edmund Kong said, “We have been lying low for a long time. So it is appropriate to buck up and move up to the next level. With a strong team now, we can move ahead with our plans once we have the raw materials (landbank) in our portfolio.”
He shared that Guocoland is launching developments with a gross development value of RM6 billion within the next 3 to 5 years. For the year of 2018, it is targeting a sales of RM1 billion. (Not many developers could have a billion ringgit target except the few big names we often read about) Kong said that looking at the land scarcity in Greater KL, it is more viable to target pockets of land and create more integrated development projects. For example, its 8.5-acre RM2.5bil GDV Damansara City. Within the mixed integrated project which is located in Damansara Heights, there are the Wisma Guocoland, DC Mall, Menara Hong Leong, Sofitel KL Damansara and DC Residensi. He also shared that the DC Mall would hit 80 percent occupancy next month. For a full article, do read through the full article in TheStar yeah. Guocoland wants more land.
I think when developers build a little further away, it is important to have an integrated development. It will be tough to just build one block of condos, no matter how attractive the condos are. The question that the buyers would have would always be what’s around this new place that I am buying? For families, it would be schools. For younger professionals, it would be places to chill out. For singles, I think affordability would be the single most important thing even if they may be willing to have a smaller-sized place for the price. In terms of all future developments however, there are still many MRT stations that are near enough so that people staying there would have connectivity to working places and perhaps even skipping the jam on weekdays. Buying more land is definitely a good news. Happy developing!
written on 30 Oct 2017
Next suggested article: Buying a new home? Ask Why, not just where. (updated)
