Expert Series with Asia’s Property Queen, Dr. Renesial Leong

It’s my honour and pleasure to have Dr. Renesial Leong for our Expert Series. The theme for this session: “Never Work Again Unless You Choose To Through Properties.” Dr. Renesial Leong is popularly known as Asia’s Queen of Property and she’s a columnist, Master trainer and best selling author of the very FIRST series of guide books on Malaysian property investment. In fact, her book was the very first one I bought when I decided to think about property investment seriously. Due to her book, “Property Jewels,” my property investment journey started. She brings with her successful property investment experience of over 20 years. Today, she will share some valuable insights into what makes a property a great investment.  Please feel free to know her better too. 
#1 – Dr. Renesial, How and When did you first realise that property investment is a ‘goldmine’? 
I was inspired by Sir Li Ka Shing’s super wealth which was built mainly through properties. This stirred my interest to start my research on properties and the potential returns from them. In my research, I discovered that many rich and famous people in the world today made their wealth through properties or  have invested into properties. There was no turning back after that and my property investment adventure has spanned over 20 years till to date.
#2 – Some say in the future, there is little need to own a property. One should just rent instead. Your thoughts? 
To a certain extent, this might be the future trend because Gen-Y may not have enough funds to pay for a property downpayment. In fact, many of them are spending it or even putting their funds into crypto currencies for example. I am not sure how this will turn out in the future but you know what, that’s great news for property investors. As long as we own properties, there is a giant pool of tenants ready to rent from us.
#3 What are the pros and cons in buying into a newer area? What should we look for?
– Winning points of a good new townships include having better planning. This will result in many benefits to the dwellers in the township. Some examples include:
– Better connectivity.  Some developers would also build connecting roads for the convenience of the township.
– Better and wider roads. This helps tremendously even when some cars are parked outside the home for example. In many older projects, as soon as cars are parked on one side, the whole road turns into a single lane.
– More greenery and better landscaping and a greener township; rainwater harvest, solar heater, lightings and more.
– Safer too because these townships usually offer a gated & guarded scheme.
– Amenities and facilities are well thought of and last but not least, there are sufficient parking spaces too.
#4 Gazing into the future, what would be your prediction for the Malaysian property market 10 years from now?
For homes which are well kept, well managed and desirable, it would have doubled in value. Even if we are not looking at it from the demand and supply factor, we should look at the simple fact that costs are rising for everything and in particular inflation will run its course whether we like it or not.
We should also look at the population growth. As at today, we are a very young nation with a median age of 28 years and a large population of Gen-Y and Gen-Z as well as a healthy household formation. This is averaging 70-80k annually. With all these factors and more, the right property will do wonders!
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