When City & Country caught up with Lim Ching Choy last week, it was at a hotel lounge as his office was under renovation.

It looks like downward trend in residential property prices on the secondary market in Johor Baru, apparent since 4Q2008, will continue to plague the state’s property market for a while yet.According to KGV-Lambert Smith Hampton Johor director Samuel Tan, homebuyers in Johor Baru are maintaining a cautious stance.“Despite the recent slight stock market rally, the outlook for the economy and Joh

City and Country randomly monitors landed residential properties up for auction in the Klang Valley, with a minimum reserve price of RM250,000.Given the current economic climate, it comes as no surprise to see a rise in property auctions. While more properties go under the hammer, sales have been sluggish overall.

I had a fun time trying to decipher the numbers in the latest 2008 Property Market Report by the Valuation and Property Services Department under the Ministry of Finance. The report is a slim volume offering raw data. It also offers a short introduction to the state of the property market as at end-2008.The report should be compulsory reading for every developer and property owner.

IOI Properties Bhd (IOI Prop) made its first foray into the retail industry in the mid-1990s, with the IOI Mall in Puchong.

After just about two months in office, new Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Seri Kong Cho Ha feels there is a need for change — not in the ministry but in the people’s perception of it. People tend to blame the ministry for all their housing-related woes, so making them understand the role of the ministry better is one of his key challenges, says Kong.

In April 2007, the government heeded calls for the build-then-sell (BTS) approach to be implemented, mainly to protect homebuyers from becoming victims of abandoned projects. It introduced two BTS variants — the complete BTS 0:100 and partial BTS 10:90 and offered incentives to encourage developers to adopt the system to deliver houses.

Section 14 in Petaling Jaya has been the subject of much talk following the collapse of part of the old Jaya Shopping Centre in the early evening of May 28. The building was in the process of being demolished when a 5-storey portion of the structure gave way, killing seven construction workers.A few days after the incident, the scene of the tragedy continues to attract curious passersby.

Overall occupancy and rental rates in the Klang Valley office market for 1Q2009 indicate signs of a downward trend.Knight Frank Malaysia executive director Sarkunan Subramaniam, when presenting The Edge/Knight Frank Malaysia Klang Valley Office Monitor for the three-month period, says the market is beginning to see the effects of the global financial crisis and weaker market sentiment.Sarkunan

The old Jaya Shopping Centre building is an investment property under CIMB-Mapletree Real Estate Fund 1 (CMREF 1) currently managed by real estate fund management company CIMB Mapletree Management Sdn Bhd — a 60:40 joint venture between CIMB Group and Singapore’s Mapletree Investments Pte Ltd.When contacted, CIMB-Mapletree Management said it would be premature to comment as the authorities are