1 The team from METROWORLD 2 Jason Doo Our foresight has helped investors to make multiple folds of capital appreciation with their earlier investments. For example, some years back, 1 acre of land there went for a mere RM100K. Today, with the same amount of money, one can’t even get an apartment in Puchong. iP: What is your edge over other agencies? JD: Our most important asset is our human resource. We have always emphasized on education, and we are committed to carrying out our training with diligent planning. Since our establishment, we have been training people on a monthly basis with the help of professionals. We do internal training as well. We have segmentized our services to cater to different market requirements. For the secondary market, we specialize in agriculture, development land, residential, commercial, industrial and corporate organizations (GLC & PLC). With the GLCs, our first attempt was working actively with Danaharta with their tenders. We were actively involved to help revamp unsold properties or NPLs from 1998, before they were released to the open market. With much effort, we have delivered a good job to Danaharta and from then onwards, we decided to start our tender and auction division. We are now working with 16 banks, including foreign ones, as well as a number of auction panels. We are now venturing into the overseas market. In Asia, we have set up affiliations in Singapore and Hong Kong. We are now keen to penetrate the Australian, Middle Eastern and European markets, where we are working towards attracting investors, in order to bring our company to an international level. iP: What is your firm’s mission and vision? JD: We strongly hold on to the 3P’s: • Premium To be the preferred real estate agency, both for clients and METROWORLD team. • Profitable Creating win-win partnerships with clients while providing infinite freedom for METROWORLD team. • Partnership Creating endless relationships with clients, developing entrepreneurs and providing METROWORLD team with infinite growth. We strongly believe that when a client buys a piece of property from us, he or she should have the comfort of being recommended a good investment; a family home should be worth every penny invested, whilst investors should get good ROIs. We offer full-fledged range of services; we help clients to sell, resell and lease their properties. We
02 believe a satisfied client will be happy to always engage METROWORLD for whatever services they need. We have clients who have been with us since purchasing their first property from us. iP: What is your property market outlook for the 2nd half of this year? JD: Of late, the US markets have been quite volatile, and we believe this may affect buying momentum, in terms of investors’ sentiment. However, having talked to a lot of international players, we found that they are still upbeat on the Malaysia property market. Within the SEA region, our residential properties are still relatively cheaper; moreover Malaysia is blessed and does not face threats from natural disasters. As for infrastructure, we do have an extensive network of major roads and highways linking our towns and cities; logistically this is fantastic. Our country is rich with natural resources and with all these blessings, this will provide good fundamentals for sustainable economic growth. Investors are comfortable to hedge their money against recession with Malaysian properties. iP: What are the up-and-coming areas that property investors can focus on? JD: It all depends, as each investor has a different budget, portfolio and goal of returns. For example, foreign investors rarely move away from the KLCC parameter, as they are very familiar with that area. While they will not be keen to invest in suburban areas such as Subang, Puchong or Petaling Jaya, these are typically the areas that local investors will focus on, especially on landed properties. Most locals are not willing to spend the same amount of money to buy a condo in the KLCC area with a built-up of 2,000 sq ft, when they can get a bigger built-up elsewhere for the same price. Another area gaining momentum is Cyberjaya, thanks to its excellent infrastructure and MSC status.
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