anyone bought 1 or 2, and anyone thinking about 3? i'm thinking of buying Plaza Damas 3.

I am a tenant at Plaza Damas 1 and owner of a unit in Plaza Damas 2. Whilst I am generating a good yield with capital appreciation on my property and have been there for over 5 years as a business owner too - my advice to you is DON'T buy it. Here are the reasons:

1. Bad management. Go to any of the unit and ask the tenants (including shopping center). The entire development is poorly managed. Parking gates are constantly not working and autopay systems don't give receipts and constantly breaking down. The developers and management really couldn't care less for the tenants and owners.

2. The shop units in Plaza Damas 1 have been vacant for over 1 year. Only the office units are in high demand. Just drive in and observe the number of vacant units on Damas 1.

3. The shopping center is performing poorly. Very high turnover of tenants. There's just not enough consumer traffic and the management is doing very little at promoting the center. Especially when their parking gates and autopay systems keep breaking down.

4. The price for Damas 3 is too high and there is now a lot of competition from Solaris Mont Kiara and in the near future Solaris Hartamas. The price is more than double what we paid for Damas 2.

That's my two cents. Did I mention that I really hate the management there?

brian, massively appreciate the honest opinions.

have u had an argument with the management?

i noticed it's very quiet. but the location is generally good, but specifically bad - what i'm saying is that it's in hartamas which is great, but hardly any traffic goes thru the only road that allows u to enter the centre. and that's why it's so quiet.

well, i suppose it could be a very good long-term investment if the management sort the act out and the whole area develops very quickly. but the units are not cheap, so i'll pass on this one.

tx.

I wish to highlight some key points to potential buyers of service apartments that are going to be developed as part of the Plaza Damas 3 project. I am an owner of a unit in Waldorf Tower which is located opposite the Plaza Damas 3 site.

1) I was forced to signed a Tenancy Agreement, agreeing to lease the unit back to Mayland for a specific duration at a pre-determined rental rate. I was not informed of such requirement when I booked a unit and paid the deposit. However, I was also asked to sign a tenancy cancellation request which was duly accepted by Mayland. When I queried of the need for such tenancy agreement, Mayland said it was to comply with some regulations pertaining to the development of the Waldorf Service apartment. I also queried the SPA laywer and received the same response. I have checked with a few other purchasers and noted they are also required to sign the Tenancy Agreement. Quite funny right? You sign a tenancy agreement and cancel it within 2 weeks and you have to pay the legal fee associated with thus agreement. Of course I refused to pay a single sen. This developer can ask you to do 'funny' things without telling you the real reason.

2) Progress payments are released upon commencement, not upon completion of each stage of construction.

3) Vacant Possession for Waldorf was delivered without Certificate of Fitness. This is provided for in the SPA. Please be aware of this. The VP delivery date was 14 Jan 2008 and a Temporary CF was only obtained on 4 Mar 2008. Without a TCF, you can't stay and you can't do any renovation. So what's the point delivering the units to the purchasers?

4) Defect liability period is limited to 6 months (as per SPA). Given the issue noted in (3) above and the time taken for renovation before the unit is ready for occupation, there is not much time left to "test" out certain items such as electrical wiring, water conduits, etc. The developer will say that you can check them during the handover inspection, but in real life you may only detect defects upon using it for a few months. E.g. some internal wiring may fail after using it for a day (which happened to me). It was fixed after I file a complain to the developer.

5) The delivery of Waldorf was 24 months late and to date, the developer refused to pay LAD, citing extension approved by architect.

6) The Tower Service Apt (Dang Wangi), which is also developed by Mayland, was also delivered late.

7) Quality issues were noted in Sri Putramas. I am sure if you do a search, you will see a lot of complaints on this.

8) Waldorf - the monthly maintenance fees are collected in full, although the facilities are not completely ready. Various purchasers have complained, but all fell on deaf ears. A reduced fee should have been charged instead.

9) Waldorf - they used contractors who do not care about safety, resulting in many accidents.


So my advice to potential buyers, please consider the above issues before making an investment in Plaza Damas 3. IMAGINE: Delay, Shoddy Work and Accidents.

Remember the news that appear sometime in April, titled "Brisk sale of Plaza Damas 3"? It says that even before the official launch, the take-up rate is 95%. Take note that the take-up rate refers to the shop offices and not the service apartments.

So, don't get the impression that the project is successful at this stage. Clearly to build 1500 units of service apartments (as mentioned in the article) may result in oversupply, which may impact the ability to obtain good subsale/rental yield upon completion.

Furthermore, to achieve strong sales, they might resort to leasing some units to be hostel. (You can read more about this here: http://www.realestate.net.my/forum/archive/sri-putramas-condo-38_25.htm)

And finally go through this website carefully http://www.sriputramas.info/


http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/4/4/business/20840744&sec=business

-extract of article-

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia Land Properties Sdn Bhd (Mayland) registered sales of about RM160mil, or a take-up rate of 95%, for its 72 shop offices in Plaza Damas 3 project in Sri Hartamas.

The one-to three-storey shop offices were soft launched last week.

Bulk buyers Maximerge Capital Sdn Bhd and Koperasi Pendidikan Islam Malaysia Bhd took up 18 units worth RM45mil and eight units worth RM20mil respectively.

Marketing manager Michelle Won said other purchasers were from the group's existing clientele.

Won said Plaza Damas 3 would also comprise 1,500 serviced apartments that would be launched in three months.

“Collectively, the entire Plaza Damas 3 project will have a gross development value (GDV) of RM800mil,” she said.

Plaza Damas 3, located within a 15km radius covering Sri Hartamas, Mont' Kiara, Damansara Heights and Kenny Hills, would be _link_ed to the earlier phases via an overhead bridge _link_, Won said.

Mayland will next be launching its Sri Putramas 3 condominiums in Jalan Kuching and a residential project in Johor Baru.

“The (Sri Putramas 3) project will have a GDV of about RM300mil, and we plan to launch that in three months as well,” she said.

“We will be launching our residential project comprising 400 townhouses in Johor Baru,” Won added, but did not specify a date.

Won also said the group was in the final stages of completing the purchase of 10 acres in the Klang Valley.

Mayland had under 500 acres of undeveloped land, mainly in the Klang Valley and Johor Baru, she added.

At this juncture, the developer of Waldorf still refuses to pay LAD (24 months late), citing architect extension. Will the architect (who is a member of its professional body) confirm that they have indeed given such extension?

Potential buyers of Plaza Damas 3 = The Developer refuses to pay LAD for late projects, giving various excuses, blaming everyone, except itself. Everyone screwed up, except itself. So convenient. Also, its usual SPA states that delivery of vacant possession is deemed to be 2 weeks from the date of notice, although CF might not be obtained yet. So, what's the point handing over VP, if you can't stay / commence renovation ?

For those potential buyer of mayland's new launch, suggest you search for their 'track record' before you commit. No doubt their development appreciated, if you buy for investment, it is fine, but if you want to stay-in, then u will have headache on defects... They are worst than Talam in terms of quality. They will blame their sub-con, but who cares about sub-con, since the developer has control over their sub-con, not us buyers.

Don't ever touch this Developer project as it is the worst developer I have ever deal with. Delay in project never pay penalty and they are lucky as the Istana is beside there. If you need to sign any agreement or S&P, better to get your lawyer to read through as they will protect the back side. I have a unit in last phase and looking at how to take lawyer action against them.

We used to be in Plaza Damas Phase 1 for our little office, we witnessed how mayland and far-east consortium tried to suck out the tenants/purchasers/investors dry. I called them the "developer wannabe" as at one side, they emphasize so much on "lifestyle, design and modern sleek concept", the other side they are making themselves nothing different from the supermarket sales, massive discounts are given to the late buyers but not the early birds, that reminded me about another developer, PJ Development that have all the "Endah"s condo under his pipeline, Endah Regal was launched with the eye-catching tagline "now, you can live regally", and turned out to be the flat-like properties which initially launched at RM240,000 during Commonwealth Games ( as the location of Endah Regal ) is quite near to the Bukit Jalil stadium, at last, minimum of 20% discounts of the actual price were given to the buyers for the unsold units.

What happened to Mayland? They are even greater,they are moving Hong Kong to Hartamas and Jalan Kuching, look at the pigeon holes at Sri Putramas, Royal Domain and the soon Regency, it's definitely an eyesore as you will find at least 1,000 units of "Royal" families staying in Royal Domain. Zoom back to Damas, look at the initial idea of having the Best 4 properties in London CBD, Mayfair, Dorchester, Windsor and Waldorf, I am ashamed of our own version of "serviced apartments" which are "served" by only the security guard that snore all the time at the lobby without seeing the concierge receptionist, bellboy and hosts like in London.

Well, investors are smart enough nowadays,see how karma fight back to PJD "luxury" version of Hartamas Regency 1 and 2, more than half of the units were still available till date as investors and potential buyers have lost faith in them, not to mentioned the "desperate housewives' favortie, Kensington Park, ( I just couldn't understand why the developer never wanted to spend few more bucks to polish up the naming part of their development instead of being a lousy copy-cat ).

Now come back to Mayland, a HK-_base_d developer that believes in quick money, if and only you have too much extra bucks to spare after minus all possible luxury stuff you spend off, then, do invest in this. It may take you 20 years to get back the returns, don't forget to spare some budget for seeing doctors due to the predictable headaches like Brian mentioned.

Oh ya, forgot to tell you that I'm happily staying in their 400sq.ft. London-inspired "serviced apartment" right now that facing the Kenny Heights development by Dutaland, the noise and hassle make it truly like in HK.