The bustling 1,000-acre Bandar Utama township in Petaling Jaya is especially known for its award-winning five million sq ft retail haven, 1 Utama Shopping Centre.

Judges for The Edge-PAM Green Excellence Award 2011 has given a jury’s commendation to the Suruhanjaya Tenaga (Energy Commission) building in Putrajaya.

The headquarters of Bandar Raya Developments Bhd (BRDB) in Bangsar can easily pass for an art gallery. A slatted wooden divider unfurls sinuously across the office, whose walls are also covered with wooden panels that cleverly hide built-in cabinets.

We know nothing about Malaysia” is something Kumar Tharmalingam, CEO of Malaysia Property Inc (MPI), hears often on his trips overseas to promote Malaysian properties. MPI, an initiative of the government’s Economic Planning Unit, was created in February 2008 to attract real estate investment to Malaysia.

As a property market matures, the number of ways buyers and sellers can find each other proliferates. In developed countries such as the US and the UK, properties are advertised on dedicated television channels, auction portals such as eBay.com and free online classifieds such as craigslist.com.

In August, six owners of units at Chuan Park, Singapore, got together to conduct a poll to gauge fellow owners’ interest in pursuing a collective sale. The 452-unit condominium sits on a 99-year leasehold site and with the lease starting from 1980, this means it is already 31 years old.

Stock markets continue to feel the strain of the debt situation in the US and eurozone even as they recover from the aftershocks of Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami as well as the political unrest in the Middle East.

With impressive property development projects behind it, including Mid Valley City and the country’s first gated and guarded high-end development Sierramas in Sungai Buloh, IGB Corp Bhd has created a niche for itself as an asset builder focused on harnessing recurring income from its products.