INVESTMENT TIPS | Walkability: What Malaysians Overlook When Buying Property
Walkability: What Malaysians Overlook When Buying Property Easy accessibility is a major concern which most prospective property purchasers have, but many tend to overlook walking as one of the possible modes of transportation in question. - BY KHAI YIN
When buying properties, the average Malaysian would think of two things: location and price. Due to the nature of my work as the founder of GoodPlace.my, an advisory blog on Malaysia property, I get questioned via email on topics such as “What is the next property hotspot?”, “Is the price of this property fair?” and many more. It is seldom – by which I mean never – that I get questions regarding how ‘walkable’ a property is or how accessible amenities are from the property’s location. Traffic jams are already a given in Klang Valley and the situation is not going to get any better any time soon, although one only hopes that things do not go from bad to worse and our streets begin to resemble those of Bangkok’s or Jakarta’s. Commuting to and from work is becoming a real pain and most Malaysians would rather live where it is convenient if given a choice. In fact, my wife has been telling me that she would be willing to take a 10% pay cut just to be able to work from home.
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It is of no coincidence therefore that new projects in Klang Valley are now trending towards being ‘integrated developments’ – the ‘everything under one roof’ concept is a major selling point which appeals to many Malaysians, both to first time homebuyers as well as investors. After all, if I am willing to bet my daughter’s college funds on properties, I will undoubtedly invest in those without a second thought. We do a lot of number crunching as part of our service to homebuyers and as such we have noticed a strong correlation between a property’s walkability and its medium-term capital appreciation. Interestingly, this also means that the walkability ‘score’ can be used as a factor to predict future pricing trends. WALKABILITY: A DEFINITION Walkability, to put it simply, is a metric which quantifies how friendly an area is to walking. In practical terms, it