Penang Watch

The sub-prime martage crisis in US and Europe should give some cause for concern for Malaysians not just in terms of the finanical fallout -which may become a world wide recession, but also the local equivalent in housing bubble. The local developers are still selling the line that property investments will always pay back because the only way for property prices/values to go is up. So for every one genuine house buyer there are likely to be more than 1 `investors'-despite the fact that there are numerous examples to disprove the sales-pitch of local developers and their agents:

1. The numerous abandoned projects in Penang alone (Majestic Ht, Taman Widuri, , Fettes Villa, to name a few) prove that investments into property development when the developers are close to lawless besides being reckless, is very risky;

2. The many irregularities involved in the approval of housing projects near dangerous hill slopes eg in Paya Trubong, resulted in many `investors' burning their fingers in their `investments';  Many investors cannot find buyers despite huge cut to selling prices, to cut loses;

3. The bad experiences with `service apartments' still hang around in Penang-where `investors' fail to find the fabled expat tenants/clients after a few years of tenancy. Similar thing is happening in shopping malls shop lots-where promised tenancy on good terms ends prematurely in a number of such developments;(In a number of cases the whole mall just fold up)

So house buyers/car buyers etc need to be smart in making loans to and from others. In the hands of crooks making loans eg from Ah Long, will burn a big hole in your pocket, sometime on your physical body as well; Loaning money eg investing in get rich quick schemes/housing/service apartments etc where you are the `ah long', can also see you `burnt' similarly when the projects/schemes go sour/disappeared! For ordinary small time player whichever you do -to loan or to borrow, you will lose to the pros. 

But don't despair-you can choose not to play in their games. Play only in games you are familiar with. Save  your butt/small pot of gold is more important than to try to `fly', in this financially turbulent time!