Affordable Property Investment Seminar

The Seminar was conducted by Wise Path Sdn Bhd with the collaboration from Investment Club of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) on Sunday 17 November 2013 at UTM Skudai, Johor. The main purpose of the seminar was to educate and encourage people to buy property either for home use or investment as soon as possible. Property investment is a misconception where most people taught it is for rich people only. Different level of income can invest in property if the principles of investment is fully fulfilled.

So, this short course is more suitable for beginner (those who have not buy any property or only have 1 or 2 properties). Property price keep increasing in Malaysia and especially very high increment in Klang Valley, Penang, Johor Bahru and Kota Kinabalu. In Johor Bahru, the property price escalate due to the success of IRDA (Iskandar Regional Development Authority). There are five zones of development in Malaysia. UTM is in zone E which is Senai-Skudai zone.

Figure 1: Morning session

As the main speaker, I started the short course with the need to invest in order to avoid rat race in our life. There were several issues being pointed out which were not discussed in any seminar. This is very important because if one really realize why their life getting worse or never improve financially, they should realize property investment is one of the best investment to do as their spare time. In Malaysia, property price will never go down unless the world wide economy went down like in 1998 or the country became a communist country!

This topic is followed with the next topic on the Successful Principles in Investment. Many people realize that there is a need to invest. However, in their eagerness to invest, they forget to apply sound investment principles. As a results, many people lost their money. This is especially true for lesser knowledgeable people. They simply follow other to invest and lost their capital. Many people were cheated in Quick Rich Scheme (Skim Cepat Kaya) in various forms and origins. In order to learn more, I encourage participants to read The Richest Man in Babylon. I have translated the book into Malay language since the original book is using King James English style which is difficult to comprehend for average people.

Beside learning sound principles in investment, participants also learned pit falls in investment especially in property investment. The Power of Mind is crucial in property investment where the concept of Doa and Tawakal was discussed. All essential works must be done first before one can Tawakal to ensure success. They are encouraged to read a book titled The Sword of Allah. The book was written by the late Lieutenant-General A.I. Akram of the Pakistan Army, in October 1969. Although the book is about Muslim wars with Persian and Roman, there are many practical aspect can be learned and adopted in life especially property investment. Participants are encourage to learn the basic as fast as possible so that it is much easier for them to ask around and learn from more experience investors.

After lunch break, Mr Zabri Mokhtar, a multimillionaire in property investment gave his taught. He is not a trained or experience speaker. He touched on philosophical and psychological views based on his experience. He encourage participants to have a huge dream. It is easy to have a small dream. But having a huge dream can ensure at least we can achieve something bigger than the original small dream. His talk became more interesting as more audience ask about his property investment experience. He discussed the strategies he used which lead to his meteoric rise in property investment. However, due to several government regulations, some of his method cannot be used anymore. Participants are advice to keep update the latest government regulations.

Figure 2: Mr Zabri gave pieces of his mind

The short course was passed back to me by showing recent examples how to minimize the capital in property investment. Knowing the tricks, it is much easier to buy a house even if it is more than half a million Ringgit Malaysia. However, the most important thing in property investment is how to ensure to get quality property. This also means how to ensure the buyer is able to service the bank loan. Combining a quality property and sound strategy to get tenants, the property can easily generate profit to the buyer. For further study, participants are encouraged to visit developments at Taman Pulai Hijau, Bandar Baru Kangkar Pulai and Taman Seri Pulai Perdana 2 for comparison.

Many people have misconception that property investment is for the rich. In the morning, it was shown that capital is the 5th out of 6 principles in investment. There are people who have less salary which manage to have many investment in property. These people concentrate on less expensive property such as auction low cost house. However, to give some idea how to prepare their capital, several idea on zero down payment tactics were discussed by Mr Zabri and me. I also gave two recent property purchased to demonstrate the investment principles learned in the morning.

Based on this short course, it is now easy for the participants to buy a house based on their affordability. However, as beginners they should realize that it is much harder to maintain the property or paying back the bank loan. Several tactics and strategies to ensure the property can generate income were discussed. However, for some people further detail study is needed in the Intermediate Affordable Property Investment course.

Figure 3: With two participants

The short course was supposed to end at 5 pm. However, due to many questions from the participants at the end of the course, the course was ended at 6.30 pm! It looks like the mixed participants from undergraduate students, graduate students and those who are working in various fields lead to different kind of interesting questions.

Figure 4: Surprise gift to 3 winners

The short course was priced at RM200 per head. This included breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea. It is considered cheap compared to the similar short courses conducted in Kuala Lumpur where a one day short course has a minimum cost of RM500 per head. We are planning to organize another basic short course. While the intermediate short course will show in detail for different scenarios how a property investment can be made and planning for good returns.

I would like to thank Mr Zabri for his willingness to spend some time to give a talk. As a very successful property investor, participants and myself learned a lot from his experience. I would also like to thank to the organizing committee. Although the team is small, they have done a superb job!

Figure 5: With Mr Zabri and organizing committee