My road to riches

A book not even 23 pages thick,
bounded only by a thread black slick,
Another page has flipped yet again,
With such ease, with so little refrain,
Not even within a moon phase,
The page flipped with such silky grace,
And so the story continue to flow,
Several new chapters will unfold,
The young lad strive on almighty,
Albeit a heart sacrificed with sorority,
And such a new chapter unfolds,
the road ahead will remain untold,
And such he will pen following pages as it unfolds.

-Bruce-
1.08 am, 25-5-2007

On September 2006, i went to a property auction and won an apartment approximately 4 km from where i live. It is a 9 year old condominium called Sri Suajaya Condominium (quite near karak highway).

My auction case was rather unique as i was won the the property at reserve price of RM 95,000 (Market value of property is RM 130,000 - which gives me an upfront profit of RM 35,000).

Here are some tech details:
3+1 rooms, 2 bath (with attached tub), comes with kitchen cabinet. Area is 970 sqft.
Situated on the 8th floor facing KL and swimming pool.

When i took over the property i had to remove the existing tenant (1 month), and renovated the place (2 weeks). Gave it a new coat of paint, fixed all doors, repaired the kitchen cabinet and renew the wiring. Total cost: RM 3800.

I managed to secure 85% financing from HSBC - RM 81,000 loan for 30 years at 5.75% p.a. This works out to be approximately RM 420 per month installment.

I thought about refinancing it after 5 years. It is currently rented to a newly wed couple for RM 700 a month since February 2007.

So here is the breakdown of this property’s month cash flow:
Rental              RM 700 (translates to 8.8% per annum - very nice)
Mortgage         RM 420
Maintenance    RM 136

Nett cashflow   RM 144 / month * 12 months = RM 1728 per year. Or roughly by renting out this property, the income is paying off my mobile phone bills.

Note that the calculations exclude the annual assessment and quit rent.

———————————————————————
Ever since that faithful day, i have been to 5 other auctions and i ended up losing all of them (some very good ones too). The next big one will set upon me soon =)

I made it a point to acquire one property per year, so lets hope this one works out fine.

So much have changed in my life over the past 3 weeks, and they are big.

• I am changing job, moving to a more exciting company.
• I broke up with my girlfriend of 1 year, and she will be my boss at the new workplace.
• I start a software company - www.novorand.com, currently working at a small medium cost project (hint, five figure). Its my first project.
• A certain part of my body requires surgery due to football, but its not urgent.

This is gonna be exciting, i cant wait to see how the rest of 2007 will unfold.

There is another property auction coming up and i have set my sights on a property near my office in TTDI. So far i managed to win 1 out of 6 auctions, all the best on this next one.