Duration, key consideration and choices expansion

My next home will be even further away than my current home. I am quite sure of it. Give me a few more years. A working professional can’t be moving every 4-5 years. I have little choice because I hope to spend less and not more and the only way to spend less is to buy further. Fortunately, the term ‘further’ means huge choices. On one end, there’s Sungai Buloh and the other end perhaps the areas after Puchong. Personally, I rate anywhere within 15km from KL city centre (Jalan Ampang) as nearby. My current office is at Jalan Yap Kwan Seng, right next to Jalan Ampang. Yes, I have walked to KLCC a few times thus far. Coming back to distance, I would personally rate anywhere within 15-25km from the KL city centre as the still nearby. Beyond 25km would be the future nearby. I say future because we are supposed to put the MRT SBK (Line 1) into the equation and by 2021, the MRT SSP (Line 2) into the calculation as well.
As we can see however, the ridership for MRT Line 1 is far from awesome. Perhaps there’s still not enough people staying further away yet? Plus a host of other reasons lah. Here’s an earlier article. Speaking about distance, it’s not that objective if we were to ask our friends in Cheras versus our friends in Sungai Buloh. As long as both of them love their respective areas, they would be biased. Haha. Google Map to the rescue. Take a look. Cheras Leisure Mall may be less than half of the distance to KLCC Jalan Ampang versus Sungai Buloh but the distance may vary as little as 10 minutes or as much as 25 minutes. Images as attached. What this tells us is that the choices we make does not need to rely on just distance because the whole Greater KL is growing. By the way, it is the same as Greater London or even the most liveable cities like Sydney or Melbourne. The middle income professionals in all these cities definitely cannot afford a nearby area anymore. That’s why terms like suburbs come about. As for all the other reasons such as food choices, property choices, school choices and even mall choices, that’s a huge chapter all by itself. Distance versus duration wise, it’s time we really drive a bit to understand more. Else, google map gives us a good indicator too.

This is not all. How about going home? Assuming we leave office on time, 530pm. Worklife balance, right? Driving home to Sungai Buloh takes between 13 minutes to 35 minutes extra. Yea, there are now integrated developments being built by many top developers which are over 40km away. The bonus for these integrated developments? Well, wider roads, bigger homes and cheaper lah. Plus I think you have seen how many of these newer developments would have parks which are the envy of many as well because the older neighbourhoods would usually have just a plain grass field and nothing else. Perhaps 5 years back, our choices have been more limited. 5 years later, the number of potential choices would be much wider. Happy buying your home sweet home. We must love the place we stay anyway.
written on 18 Nov 2017
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