water tank work order confirmed!

just like to share with our residents that the work order (inden kerja) for our water tank project is already confirmed & signed by YB Yeoh Soon Hin, which means the work order is officially valid & for this the vendor will get a copy, they should be able to proceed with the necessary arrangement with this official document.

we expect they will soon order those part & material from their own supplier, should take abt 2 weeks according to our last discussion with them, which means parts can be arrived in Penang middle of October, with the parts they will immediately dismantle the existing water tank, in the manner that after one old water tank dismantled, they will immediately replace with the new water at the same location, it takes abt 1 weeks to complete one water tank if weather is good, in order to speed up the whole process, they may want to do for both Blk J & K simultaneously if got sufficient manpower from their company.

so, if everything REALLY REALLY goes smoothly then we can expect the whole to be completed by December, so let's pray & hope for the favorable condition for the work, especially the weather, well, just an advance notice, after the project is done, we will organize a thanksgiving party (just like previously done for main entrance shade & blk k lift upgrade) to the state gov't, and at the same time to ask them for other project funding :)

let's pray for God's favor upon Vista Condo.

beware of rabies!

as some of our vista residents may have already know abt the rabies outbreak, or in layman term mad dog disease, which has caused a big concern in the Northern Malaysia, as so far already some confirmed cases in Penang, Perlis & Kedah.

well, as the state gov't decided to get rid of the stray dogs by killing them, and protested by some animal loving NGO, we will leave it to them to argue abt should (or should not) killing the stray dogs in Penang (abt 2.5K of them!), but some suggestion we will like to present to our residents.

do kindly alert the office or guard on duty if you see any stray dogs hanging around in Vista Condo or the road outside our compound, office number is 019-5730637 & guard house number is 017-4290637, also can contact MPPP at 04-2637000, pls don't try to chase the dogs away by yourselves unnecessarily, but rather pls keep yourselves away from them, especially the children, pls do advice your kids on this too.

(in fact this virus can be passed through cats too, so the same suggestion also applied for the stray cats)

for residents who are keeping dogs & cats in their unit, pls do see your VET for advice, heard that rabies vaccine will be (or perhaps is ready) made available in Penang, so for sake of your own safety, do kindly visit the VET for this.

rabies can be deadly if not treated immediately, let's do our bit to prevent it.

thanks.

general updates as at 12/9/15

hi,

few matters to update our beloved residents,

1) water tank, we have passed our 20% (or RM81,000) for the water tank project to state treasury dept, out of this 81K, 45K is the existing water tank trade price, 15K is interest free loan from the vendor, & another 21K from our management account. we expect the state planning dept will issue the work order in one week's time and thereafter the vendor will start the project. estimation of completion is 3 to 6 month depending the condition of the weather.

2) cleaners, the previous cleaning company have resigned from doing the service in our place due to the fine of the mosquitoes larvae issue, the new company have started their service early September, their job scope is at the same as the previous one, at the moment we are monitoring their job quality, residents do help to feedback us your observation.

3) gutter clips, the vendor has finally completed the project of fixing the new clips on those gutters which needed the new clips, we want to thank our residents especially those who willing to give access
to the vendor for fixing the clips, but as we have asked the office staff to monitor all the gutters in Vista Condo, we also encourage our residents to report to the office as soon as possible if detect any problem concerning the drain pipe gutters.

4) AGM, now we are planning to call an AGM as soon as the audit report is completed, should be somewhere October or November, will keep residents updated concerning this.

thanks.

we see the money now!

yesterday the water tank vendor passed to the office a big cheque, amount RM60k, out of that, RM45k is for the existing water tank trade in, and RM15k an interest free loan for the same project :)

we asked the office to delay no more but bank in the cheque immediately, which they did. we expect the floating days of 2 to 3 days then the money should be made available for us on next Wednesday, then we should quickly issue the banker's cheque amounting to RM81k as our portion of 20% to the state gov't so that they will issue the work order to the water tank to start the project, we hope all these can be done next week, or if not then completed the following week.

honestly we have a very mixed feeling now, at one hand we are excited abt Vista Condo going to have the new water tanks, but at the same time also worry if there's any hiccup during the installation process, which is really beyond our control, so we only can keep reminding the vendor to carry out the project properly & consider all the possible situation, and come out with the contingency plans shall something happen.

vendor's estimation is this project will take abt 3 months if everything goes smoothly, the main factor will be the weather, but as long as the rain is not too heavy then the workers can still do the jobs, so we hope that rain does come to chase away the haze but not too heavy until the water tanks can't be installed :):):)

hope for the best, prepare for the worst, we pray & hope that this project will be completed smoothly so that our residents will enjoy much better water quality soon!

Just back from BERSIH...

guys, no posting this week as admin just back from a rally at KL, then busy to clear some work backlog as few days missing in action due to joining the rally, won't be able to post any article this week, very sorry & will write to our residents again next weekend.

finally, breakthrough for water tank :)

finally, there's a breakthrough concerning the water tank, now we have all the MC bearers (namely chairman, vice chairman, treasurer & secretary) signed on the water tank installation & interest free loan agreements! this is a big step towards the installation of the 10 new water tanks at Vista Condo :)

we have forwarded the signed copies of agreement to the vendor few days ago, he also brought the installer to do the final viewing of the water tank site for their final planning for installing the water tanks, understand from them that the project should be carried out as planned earlier but they may want to suggest some better idea of how to maximize of the volume of the water tank at the ground floor, this will be brought to MC for them to consider.

now we are waiting for the vendor to channel in the money, RM45k for the existing water tank trade in & RM15 interest free loan, we expect the money will come in this coming week, then together with our saving of RM21k, it should make up to RM81k to be deposited into state gov't treasury dept as our part of 20% contribution for the project.

(just to recap, Vista Condo has been recognized by state gov't as LMC (low medium cost apartment) which enjoy the privilege of state gov't financial aid on those major repairing project like change main pipe, lift or water tanks, under the arrangement of 80% - 20%, state gov't give 80% & residents give 20%, as for the water tank project total cost is RM405K, our 20% contribution is RM81K)

we hope the project can be started at the end of September as the vendor need to order the part & material from his own supplier, if everything go smoothly then it may take 3 months to complete the installation, but if the weather not too friendly then need one or two months more...., for whatever situation it may be, MC will try our best to make sure there's no water supply interruption during the installation, really hope for the smooth ride :)

let's pray.....

confirmed deal? false hope?

again, we are given another opportunity to proceed with the water tank project, but will this time we can make it a confirmed deal or just another false hope like early June? where our saving then was sufficient for the project but last minute need to channel the money to replace the concealed under ground bomba pipe due to it's urgency.

after 2 months, now we are again in the right financial position to proceed with this project, and even closer than early June because the 2 agreements (water tank installation agreement & interest-free loan amount RM15K agreement) have been forwarded to us & already signed by most of the MC office bearers, we should wait for one more signature then vendor will channel in the money 60K (45k for advance payment for the old water tanks trade in & 15k for interest free loan) then together with our saving of 21K we should issue the banker's cheq amounting to 81K as 20% contribution from our side for the gov't to issue work order for the vendor to start the project.

after what happened in June where the project failed to proceed, so now we dare not to promise to our residents that the project will definitely start soon, still some uncertainties need to face, like will we get the complete office bearer signature? will all the office bearers agree with project? will there be another last minute urgent repair work need us to spend the money for it first? will gov't still wait for us after so many months after the approval has given? etc etc....

we should know the answer in this coming Sunday evening MC meeting, we do hope signatures will be complete & committee will have full agreement to proceed, shall this happen then we will quickly get the vendor to give us the 60K big cheq for us issue another banker's cheq 81K to the gov't, but will it happens that smoothly? hope so....

let's see.....

defaulters are the culprits!

recently we urge the management office to make sure they will put up the defaulters' list at the notice board, and they did it for 3 consecutive months already.

each time we look at the defaulters list, we thought it's quite disgusting, a bit strong term here, but then if we look the consequences of their irresponsibility in this area, we know that to be called disgusting is too light the term....

especially at the moment when the water tank project need to drag until now due to lack of fund as the result of their not-paying bad behavior, residents need to use those not-so-clean water to bath & wash their clothes & dishes, and even if some of resident don't have the water filter, then they got to drink from this water which may cause health problem, we really feel that it's quite disgusting.

(water tank project should be proceed soon as we have now managed to save enough fund after paid up the bomba pipe project, pending for MC approval this coming meeting)

we don't know what is in their mind, some defaulter actually are staying in Vista Condo too (some just rent their unit out to their tenants), in order to continue to live as debtors, their rather park their vehicle at the roadside but choose not to pay service charge, but when go check their units, you still see few aircond & astro were installed, we are not convinced that they are so poor until can't pay service charge.

we also notice that most of them are having their family members staying with them here in Vista Condo, and they spouse & kids also using the not-so-clean water for washing their stuffs, it's very selfish to let the family members to suffer the consequence of their irresponsibility.

of course it's definitely not fair for the good paymasters, because of the defaulters, they can't enjoy the better condition of the existing facilities, such as lift, water tank, car park, swimming pool, etc, sigh....!

defaulters, when are they going to wake up? at the end they still need to pay the outstanding service charge even with the interest when they sell their house or need to use their car park (or later on when we got enough money to install the lift T&G system), their irresponsible behavior have created harm for everyone, include themselves & their family but benefits nobody.

hope they realize this.

Vista Condo property value

one of the main challenge for the MC is to keep the value of the Vista Condo property to march the market value as other similar apartment in this nearby area.

for the 700 sqft apartment in Bayan Baru & Bayan Lepas area, those low density one can be sold as much as RM350k to RM400k like our neighbor Villa Condo, even Desa 2 also can fetch abt RM380 for the higher floors, but lower floors abt RM300K, Vista Condo at the moment selling in between RM300K & RM330K, which is still higher than many poorly maintained 700 sqft apartment but we can't take things likely or else our value can't catch the market trend.

one thing we are doing now is to keep the number of foreigner hostels as low as possible, we know that it's very hard to get rid of all the hostel, but we manage to keep it below 5 then it should be quite ok, we can't afford to let our apartment to be another flat 88 or those apartment behind the Relau Public Bank, the number of the foreigner hostels is so high until the property value of these apartment are abt 50K to 100K below the market value!

we also pay special attention to the very important facilities, which will affect our day to day living, especially the lifts, water tanks, the pumps, etc. we do notice that some of the apartment in Penang do face the lift problem on the regular basis, and news spread very fast with the help of internet, things such as all the lifts can't function so residents need to climb staircase for many weeks, even months, or water tank leak so badly until many part of corridor or house can't be used...one common abt these apartment is, their property is greatly affect by the malfunctioning of the important facility. our preventive action for the mentioned problem is to make sure our SC collection is sufficient to maintain & improve the existing facilities, and maintain good term with government & insurance agent so that when need them to help us on those major repair then we know where to run to :P

we believe if Vista Condo continue to be well maintained, the value will continue to soar as we are located at the very strategic location, near to industrial zones, shopping places like Queensbay mall/tesco/giant/sunshine, learning institutes & schools, also the 2 bridges, airport, durian haven balik pulau, even travel to town or even northern part of Penang also not even 45 min :)

thanks.

general updates as at 25/7/15

hi,

few updates for our beloved residents,

1) foreigners' hotels: since the RM500 per month for the monthly service has been reinforced, some progress is made, we received report that 2 blk J hostels have moved out in June, and today another 2 more hostels from blk K are moving out too. so the total number of the foreigner's hostels at the moment is 14 unit, we hope that more units will be moved out in the near future and be able to keep the number below 5 unit in total by year end.

concerning those units which still occupied by the foreigner workers, sad to say that until now the landlord are not willing to pay the service charge, but anyway we are not going to compromise on this matter, so next time when the landlord decide to move in or rent it to other peoples who need the parking lot, then they will need to pay the outstanding service charge (RM500 per month) plus the interest, which can be quite sizable as it's started from May 2015.

2) drain pipe gutter clip: past few weeks the vendor managed to fix 18 clips for the gutter, especially those out of shape gutters, the challenge still remain the same as before, ie some house owners either not at home or didn't let the vendors to come in to fix the gutter clip, we want to thank those residents who had let the vendor to use their balcony to fix the new gutter clip, we also hope more cooperation can be given for the safety of all the residents in Vista Condo, at the moment he with the building supervisor are still trying to approach our residents for the project until all the gutters are securely locked at the wall.

3) new water tank: sorry for the delay, as last month the committee decided to give the bomba pipe replacement a higher priority than water tank, due to safety reason, so as more than RM10,000 needed for the bomba pipe replacement, the water tank will need to wait for fund to built up again, we hope that this coming 1 week can collect 12K so that by month end we will have enough money to deposit into gov't account the 20% in order to start the project, we welcome if residents would like to pay few months in advance service charge so that the project can be started as early as possible.

thanks.

no posting this week (Raya Holiday)

hi,

no posting this week as most of the MC members are busy bring family out for holidays, will resume next week.

wish everyone in Vista Condo selamat hari raya & enjoy your holidays.

drive safely.

best regards.

beware of theft!

past few weeks we have received some complaints from residents concerning personal belongings went missing within their compound, in between the main doors & grill doors have gone missing, stolen items mainly are shoes, relatively new & more expensive shoes.

normally after we have heard this kind of complaint, we would try to find out from them roughly what date & time the event took place, and try our best to check the CCTV, but too bad almost every time we couldn't get the culprit because as long as the person(s) don't use the lift after stole the items then there's no way we can get him.

we did come across few incidents that items went missing at the ground floor common areas, and most of the time we can find the thieves & get the CCTV video clip for police to take further action, as most of the ground floor common area are covered by CCTV, but if items gone missing at corridor areas then not much can be done.

in fact according to our experience, most of the cases are committed by our own residents or tenants, we believe after they have stolen the items from residents' main entrance (or corridor), they will use the staircase to go back to their own units, so as the corridors & staircase are the blind spot of CCTV then their cowardly action won't be recorded :(

our advice is, keep those more costly items in the house or inside the shoe rack (make sure the shoe rack is out of reach if someone try to open it out the grill door), because the management can't do much unless we install CCTV at all the corridor but it's impossible at the moment as the cost is very very very high.

let's beware of the thieves, thanks.

next safety project - tighten the gutter clip

after bomba pipe replacement, now we are proceeding to another safety project, to tighten as many as possible Vista Condo new gutter clip.

the gutters are those drain pipe which channeling all the roof top water to the ground floor, all these while we are monitoring them, for these gutter already reached their 20 years of age, few gutters fell in the past, which we have replaced them with the new one, we also replaced some of those about to fall, according to our record, we have fixed at least 5 new gutters since yr2010, and have done 2 times tightening the gutter clip project but not very successful.

the reason we tighten the gutter clips is those clips are old & can no longer hold the gutter to the wall effectively, and if we don't fix the new clips then before long the gutter will be out of shape & increase the risk of falling down when pressure built up, through strong wind & big amount of rain water flowing through it, so to tighten the clip (or putting the new clip) is needed to be done periodically.

so this time, we have received few quotations for the new clips, view the samples, discussed over it, and now have decide to proceed if possible this coming week, but based on the past experience, this going to be a challenge, not because of technical issue, but due to some residents' attitude.

twice in the past we have planned & arranged for the vendor to try to access to the residents' balcony to fix the new clip, but even though with sufficient advance notice, many residents choose not to open the door for our supervisor & vendor to enter their premises to fix the clip at the gutter next to their balcony, and also some of residents went away from their house even tough they told the office they will be at home to wait for vendor to come to their house.... :(

so this time, as we feel that we need to fix the clip especially for those higher risk one (pls note that not all the clip need to be replaced, but only certain clip, for which we will inform the unit owner through notices), we hope our residents will be more cooperative this time, after all this is about the safety benefits of the Vista Condo residents.

thanks.

completion of bomba pipe project

our pleasure to announce that the bomba pipe (at the foyer area) replacement has completed smoothly :)

the vendor has set the bomba pump (jockey pump) to the auto mode, and now we are still monitoring & hope that the hose reel & valve in the riser room of every floor can continue to hold the pressure, pray....

this is the first time for many many years that we are able to set the bomba pump to the auto mode, as mentioned in the posting earlier, one of the reason we can't set it to auto mode was the leaking problem, so now we are happy to see this problem has been rectified and hose reels of every floor are ready to fight the fire in case it happens.

well, talk abt fire, just a reminder for our residents that, you should see at your floor, in the lift lobby, there are few riser room, 2 particularly important one is TNB riser room & Bomba riser room, pls make sure that you know which one is a bomba riser room, and in case of fire you (assuming you have some knowledge in firefighting) will need to break the padlock and pull the hose reel out to put off the fire.

lastly, pls help us to monitor the bomba riser room, if you see water leaks out from the bomba riser room, pls do immediately call management office 0195730637 or guard on duty 0174290637, so that we should immediately check if anything burst inside.

thanks.

Bomba pipe replacement

we are at the moment replacing quite a sizable length of Bomba underground pipe near the swimming pool foyer area, it's a long overdue project which we plan to do first quarter of this year, but due to lacking of fund then we only can do it now at the second quarter of 2015.

well, another 2 projects which also should be carried out in first quarter but still can't be done up to this day due to money problem are the lift T&G scanner & water tank :(

back to the bomba pipe, sometimes ago we have noticed that the bomba pump had been set to manual mode instead of supposedly auto mode, after much investigation, the conclusion is a section of bomba pipe at the swimming pool entrance is crack & it made the pump pressure keep dropping, and if the pump is to set to auto mode then there will be wasting a lot of water & current as the pump need to keep running in order to generate enough pressure, and we subsequently contacted few vendor to have a look on the problem but didn't go ahead with them as we were not convinced of their workmanship and proposal.

so we have reluctantly left the pump in the manual mode, always reminded the supervisor & guard to ON the pump in case of fire, but deep in our heart there's no peace, because we are not sure if the guard (especially those new guard).

until last year, when the issue was brought up again by the newly elected MC, we felt that we should get this done as soon as possible as we have found the reliable fire fighting facility vendor to maintain our equipment, but then the finance was an issue because the quoted price RM14K was out of our reach.

thank God, after months of effort to build the fund, we lastly in the good financial position to replace the Bomba pipe, and the vendor also kind enough to reduce the price to abt RM12K (we also have another 2 quotations for the same project, quoted 16K & 20K respectively), even can be paid in 2 installment, so few weeks ago we have confirmed the project with them & now they are installing the new pipe for us :)

it will take few days to complete it, meanwhile we will open the pool side gate residents to enter the swimming pool area, after the completion, we should check & make sure all the Bomba riser room hose reel & valve are still in good condition to hold the pressure when we set the pump to auto mode, or else it may burst & water will flow into the lift, which can cause major break down to the lift, like what happened abt 3 years ago....scary experience.....

let's pray that everything will ok, thanks.

our aging main water pipes

looks like our various main pipes are yelling for our attention recently....

after we have replaced the underground PBA main pipe in blk k parking area some weeks ago, we found that on the floor abt 3 meter away from the newly replaced pipe there's water too, and now we suspect another section of underground main pipe may facing the same problem, crack...... :(

to make the situation more worrying, past few weeks we received & attended to few corridor main water pipe burst cases, those main pipes are supplying water to every residents' unit, you can find it before resident's PBA meter, normally when these main pipe crack, the water will flow out from the main pipe & flooded the corridor area, worse case then it will go into nearest resident's house, and the bad bad bad one will flow into the lift & cause short circuit, and eventually kill the lift electrical component & cause major break down, which happen before to blk k lifts, it will take at least two days to make the lifts move again as the the components need to be dried up first before necessary repair works can be carried out.

to replace all these main pipes will cost huge sum of money, we don't think if rely on our maintenance fund alone can have sufficient fund to handle this job, so eventually we still need to run to the gov't for help, especially the state gov't 80%/20% arrangement for the low medium cost apartments like Vista Condo.

now we got to face the fact that most of our main pipes are at the end of their life span, and we need to make plan to replace them, as soon as possible, perhaps in the coming AGM we will share more with our residents, and may propose to collect monthly sinking fund (maybe RM10) so that when gov't approve our request to replace the main pipes, we will have enough money to pay for our 20%.

thanks.

ok...we are financially ready....

yes, generally speaking, we are financially ready now for the water tank project :)

just to recap a bit, we need to deposit 20%, or RM81000 into state gov't account to secure the work order for the vendor to start the project, as he willing to pay 45K for existing water tank trade in, and provide 15K loan for the project, then our side just need to get ready 21K to make up 81K, and we just check our bank balance plus this 2 days' collection, it seems we are in the good position for the project.

what next? well, barring any real real real urgent maintenance matter which big money is needed, then we should as soon as possible sign some agreement with the vendor for the trade in, loan arrangement as mentioned above, and he will get the documents duty stamped & release the money for us to issue banker's cheq for the 20%.

we are looking at the time line of next week for agreement to be completed & money to be released toward end of week or early of following week, and prayerfully no other hindrances on the way.

.....5 minutes ago just gave a few calls to some MC members (also office bearers) to update them on the financial status, they too felt that we should go ahead now with the project, so now we must waste no time but to call the vendor to get all the documents ready tomorrow or day after.

will update our residents on this, from time to time. Thanks.

general updates as at 23/05/15

hi, few matters to update our residents....

1) the new security guard company has taken over the guard post since 15/05/15, we want to thank the previous guard company & the boss for their support for the past few years, and we wish them well in other projects. the new company's name Aura Security Services Sdn Bhd, we hope that they will do the good job here, anyway the guard post phone number still the same, ie 017-4290637, residents feel free to call the guard on duty for security related matters, also other things like foreigner using our swimming pool, renovator over stay, stranger hanging around at common areas.....

2) we missed the self imposed dateline for the water tank project on middle of the May due to the same reason, not enough money even though the vendor willing to loan us RM15K, but our collection has been coming in very slowly so can't gather enough money for putting up 20% to deposit into gov't account for the project to get started. actually we just need to come up with 20K as vendor willing to absorb our existing water tank with 45K, plus the loan 15K, then in total we should issue the banker's cheq amounting to 81K which is 20% of total project cost. we hope end of May we will have enough money for that.

3) received report in our last posting that bike owner's item got stolen in common area, our suggestion is try as much as possible to park your bikes in the coverage of CCTV & don't leave valuable item at your bikes. the same applied to the those items residents kept at their main entrance & corridor area, especially nice shoes, pls keep them in your house as corridor is not covered by CCTV, and as in Vista Condo we have abt 1000 residents, for sure some of them are the itchy hand fella who will turn into pencuri once see opportunity....shame on them!

4) few weeks ago the management have no choice but to deduct RM300 from the renovation deposit of a resident, so for this case he only can claim back RM200 instead of RM500, of course he was not too happy but then the management need to be firm in this case because his renovator had been frequently violating many house rules, still there are 2 more units which the deposit will be deducted due to same reason, so now the office just waiting for the owners to come & claim the deposit, then the owner will taste his own medicine.

5) some foreigner hostel's landlords did come to office wanted to pay monthly service charge (SC) but refuse to pay the new rate of RM500, after some unhappy conversation with the office staffs, they decided don't pay the SC, well, it's better for them to move out the foreigner factory worker or else they may need to pay more in the future as some residents have suggested to increase their SC further to RM800.

thanks.

no posting this week

hi,

no posting this week, will resume next week.

thanks & regards.

likely breakthrough in May for water tank

we are praying hard now for big breakthrough in May for our water tank project, which the state gov't has agreed to sponsor 80% of the cost, but it has been delayed until because we can't produce the 20% to be deposited into their account in order for the work order to be issued to the chosen for them to start the project.

we have learned the painful lesson that we should get ourselves ready financially speaking, so that in the future when gov't approve our request on the big project such as building repainting or lifts upgrade & expect us to bear the 20% (which is the standard requirement for low medium cost apartment like Vista Condo) then we can deposit it immediately so the it won't cause any unnecessary delay, especially for the urgent one.

so, for this water tank project, we have obtained the approval in February, but can't proceed due to lack of fund in our account, as we were expected to bear 20%, which is RM81K as the total project cost is RM405K, the delay is truly unnecessary because the vendor to absorb our existing water tank with 40K payment in advance, but we can't even pay the 41K, sad....

after few months of praying & trying our best to save some money, thank God for some defaulters came & paid their old debt, and we can safely contribute from our account abt 20K, and even the vendor also kind enough to advance to us some more money (besides the advance payment for absorbing the existing water tank) in the middle of May so the we can gather in total 81K to deposit into state gov't account for the work order to be issued to start work, we hope by middle May we can have 25k from the account so that we only need to borrow from the water tank vendor 16K.

let's pray with us for this project to proceed & be completed smoothly.....thanks.

new service charge for foreigner hostel

so, starting this month, those unit turned into foreigner's hostel will need to pay service charge (SC) of RM500, compare to usual rate of RM100 per month.

it was a decision passed during the EGM, where residents voted for this new rate, and for more than a month's time we have contacted the landlord & their agent to advice them not to continue to rent to the factory to make their unit to be hostel, but too bad our advice fell into deaf ear, so no more chance will be given & we need to carry out the decision by our residents, impose the new rate in May.

in fact to our displeasure, we also find out despite of the new rate which will be imposed, some unit which previously still rent to local peoples, now the owner have just recently make it a foreigner's hostel, it seems that their profit is so high until they willing to pay for the RM500 SC, some info we got from our residents that these units can rent out as high as more than RM1200 rental per month!

of course some landlord did protest, quoted excuses like didn't receive news, or already signed tenancy agreement until year end, or foreigner tenant didn't create problem in our place....we only can tell them that MC don't have the right to change the decision of the EGM, they still need to pay RM500 if they choose to make their unit to be hostel, we also warned them next EGM the rate may go even higher, because we have received feedback that RM500 may be too little compare to the profit of the landlord get from the factory, perhaps increase to RM1000 will be better option.

another measure will be soon taken is lift scanner system (for this, the T&G card won't issued to foreigner's hostel) which also suggested & decided in the EGM, but now we are saving money for the water tank & bomba pipe replacement (these 2 project will be soon started, most likely June), but we will install the lift scanner as soon as got enough finance for that, it may be very soon as one supplier willing to let us have 12 monthly installment & very reasonable price, we would like to see the system is up soon!

again, like to take this opportunity to advice those landlord, for the sake of Vista Condo safety, quiet living environment, property value....and other valid reasons, pls stop renting your unit out as foreigner's hostel.

we also like to ask help from our residents that pls send info (unit number) to us if there's foreigner's hostel near your unit so that we won't miss any unit when we charge them with the new rate.

thanks.

general updates as at 25/4/15

time to update our beloved residents concerning the happening in Vista Condo...

1) the job for replacing the faulty under ground conceal main pipe at blk k parking area already completed, it took abt one week to finish, now we are monitoring the water flow rate at the main drain besides the blk k, the full payment will be made only after we are sure that the job is indeed done properly.

2) new office clerk Ishak has reported to work, he is replacing the the previous clerk Ah Lai, hope he is an efficient worker, just for resident's info, another veteran staff Mr Rahman's role is building supervisor, so most of the time he will check on our common area, attends to residents' complaint, also to monitor the work of other vendor like guards, housekeeping staffs, renovators, etc.

3) we have sent the letters to all the unit owner of the foreigners hostel to ask them not to convert their unit to be hostel and if they insist then new rate of service charge RM500 will be imposed starting May 2015, so far some of them responded & still negotiating of moving out the tenants but most of them just don't bother, well, let's see how it goes in May....

4) some residents suggested in the previous posts that should put the defaulters' unit number & outstanding amount at the notice board (or other places which many peoples will pass by), we thought this this is workable idea, so from next month onward, defaulters' detail will be up at the notice board at every middle of the month, hope this will create some pressure for them to pay SC promptly.

thanks.

challenges of prolonging Vista Condo life span (part 2)

last article we mentioned abt if based on our regular monthly collection on the SC (Service Charge), as long as we can maintain 85% collection rate, then we should have enough fund to maintain our existing facilities, even to upgrade it, but for those major items like building repainting, water tanks replacement, lifts upgrade, major PBA & sewerage pipe replacement then gov't financial aid is definitely needed, for most of the cases, state gov't will absorb 80% & residents will bear the 20% of the total cost, for Vista Condo we are consider fortunate as state gov't recognise s as LMC (low medium cost) apartment which open door for us to approach state gov't for help :)

our challenge now is how to get ourselves ready for the 20% whenever gov't is willing to fund the 80%. 2 years ago when state gov't approved our request to upgrade blk k lift, where we need to deposit abt RM34k as 20% so that the upgrade work can be commenced, it also took us awhile to gather enough money for that purpose, so this time when gov't willing to absorb the 80% of the total cost for 10 water tanks replacement, we can't produce the 20% which is RM81K, so the project has been delayed until now :(

the water tank vendor is kind enough to let us trade in our existing water tanks with high price at 40K, even willing to channel in the money in advance so that our side only need to contribute RM41K to get the project started, but sad to say, we don't even have 41K at the moment but only 20K.

well, we believe in another 2 months' time we will have that 41K, but now what interest us more is, how abt future project? as we are planning to get gov't to help on main pipe replacement, building repainting, blk j lift upgrade, etc. we should always have the money ready to pay the 20% when gov't is ready to bear the 80%.

if possible, we would like to suggest in the coming AGM to collect RM10 every month from each unit as Vista new sinking fund (the old sinking fund still pending on further legal action), but pls understand this is jz a suggestion, we can't proceed with this without residents' approval.

we will like to see every month to collect abt RM2750 as Vista have 275 unit & deposit into sinking fund account, then in a year's time should have RM33000, 2 years is RM66000, 3 years RM99000, if FD rate is 4% then after 3 years the figure should hit RM100000 :)

the whole purpose is so that when gov't say yes to our future request for building repainting, or blk j lifts upgrade, or other major project few years from now, we can deposit our 20% straight away & the new project can start immediately, and our residents can enjoy it's benefit without the unnecessary delay.

what do u think?

thanks.

challenges of prolonging vista condo life span (part 1)

we always told each others (haha! most of us in our 40s already) our generation are consider very fortunate, as many of us are capable to purchase an apartment in Penang, because many graduates who although have worked for few years, but still can't afford to buy an apartment due to the skyrocketing of property value in the past few years, now in Penang, a 700sqft apartment (like Vista Condo) with reasonable facility worth easily 280k, imagine those days when most of us purchased the property in late 1990s' until late 2000s', only cost abt 100k.

while federal govt & state govt busy introducing some cooling measure trying to control property value (such as increase real property gain tax, stricter loan condition, affordable housing, etc), we still don't expect property value will drop, especially those in range of 250k to 400k may still increase in the much slower pace, perhaps the high end one like more than 600k will have little bit problem to push their unit, anyhow price won't drop, unless the bubble burst in future, which is quite unlikely....

latest statistic shows that Penang will see increase of population 100,000 person per year, which needs abt new 25,000 house in every year, this speak of house/apartment still in demand, especially those in 250k to 400k are in shortage, so for Vista Condo, your unit still sell-able in future, as long as our facilities still in good shape.

so now the challenge is, how to maintain the facilities in good shape in order to make Vista Condo remain attractive in the market? basically for condo living, some critical area need to pay more attention to, for market value and also residents' living, the lifts, the water tanks, various pumps, major electrical items found in the switch rooms.....

Vista Condo as a 20 years old apartments, understandably that many facilities have reached the end of life span, so we are slowly replacing these facilities, in the past few years, 2 lifts in blk k have been upgraded, 2 swimming pool pump & filter replaced, 1 residential pump also changed, some important but no so critical items like gutters, underground pipes also replaced in some area...

at the moment if based on our monthly collection of Service Charge, as we find way to maintain it at 85% collection rate, then we still able to replace the aging facilities, but for the future replacement of the more major items such as water tanks, lifts at blk j, bomba & residential pumps, bomba pipes, PBA common pipes, then govt's help is needed, but as their financial help only 80%, our future challenge will be how to produce the 20% even when the govt has agree to contribute 80%.

this is the situation we are facing now, the gov't willing to bear 80% of the water tanks project, which is abt 320K, residents suppose to contribute the 20% or 81k, but as the vendor is kind enough to absorb our existing tanks at 40K, but we still can't produce the remaining 41K to order the get the project started, and it's delay until today....

we will share more next week on few options to tackle this, pls also contribute your opinions so that hopefully at the end we will be able to start the govt funded-projects as soon as possible whenever govt's fund is available, for other project as well.

thanks.

some updates on the foreigner hostel

before we share some updates on the hostel issue, we also wish to inform our beloved residents that the yr2015 insurance premium is RM215.30 & quit rent is RM9.60, pls do kindly proceed payment at the management office so that we can settle with insurance agent as early as possible :)

yes concerning the foreigner's factory hostel, last month we saw another 2 unit have jz moved in, so now the total is 12 units officially, what a frustration we have!!!

we have got the landlords' number from the management office & called them personally, there are few numbers can't get through, and one wrong number too. But we managed to talk to some of them, only one landlord give the positive response that he will try to ask the agent to move out the foreigners but ask for more time, but another few landlords display some uncooperative attitude, but we have made it clear to them that our residents have passed the resolution in EGM to increase their service charge (SC) to RM500 per month if they continue to keep the foreigner factory workers in their unit.

this coming week the management office will send the notice to the landlords informing them their SC will increase to RM500 effective May'15, we expect some big hoohaa from them after they receive the notice, but since they have chosen to ignore the verbal warning through phone calls so we got to send them some official notice, in fact we have also talked to lawyer & MPPP concerning this.

actually it's offense of the law by converting residential unit into hostel, for which we also will send the list of hostel detail to MPPP soon for them to act, in short, we try to corner these unit from whatever angle which is available, and hope that the landlord will have common sense to stop renting their unit to the foreigner workers.

we are collecting more quotations for the lift T&G scanner system, once our finance is more ready then the system will be installed in our 4 lifts, for which the access card would not be issued to the hostels, this is another way of discouraging these units to be turned into hostels.

do share with if you guys have good ideas to tackle this problem, thanks.