Georgetown as a Place to Live

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hi,

A new topic for anyone with any comments.

Living in the Inner City?
Buy a Shophouse and do it up?

My own view. No problem with buying a shophouse as opposed to a hillside/seaview condo. And then turning it into something. Cost usually depends on how far gone it is, and usage. You can certainly make cash on buying older property and doing it up.

As an architect most of my professional career was in renovating older properties in central London. Georgian, Victorian, Edwardian. Maybe a total of more than 100 for private clients and Housing Trusts. I once bought a Grade 2 listed shop in Islington and turned it into self-contained, but linked, art gallery (I know, what else? everyone's got an art gallery), and studio apartment.

(Details : I bought it for GBP 22,000 in burnt-out condition and carefully spent GBP25,000 on it. I reluctantly sold it for GBP125,000 as I was in the Far East and needed the cash and had to pay off the loan. It is now valued at about GBP325,000. Just goes to show, huh - buy and hold property if you can, not shares).

I lived in the place in Islington, certainly inner city. Could walk everywhere but, Jeez, the noise. It was 24/7 living, plus a burglary every year, plus no parking.

I bought a place in Portugal, inner city in a historic tourist town. I had it re-built, super place, spacious with a sun terrace to die for. I lived there off/on (mainly off) for over 25 years. But, same thing, could walk everywhere and 24/7 living. No parking, and no escaping the noise. Great if you're partying at 3am and you're 30 ++. Not so great at 60 and worrying about the cholesterol from the cheese cracker. But no burglaries, just squatters.

So, inner city Georgetown as a place to live? Dunno?



PS: The financial details for the place in Islington are given as I've always been fed-up of folks who start to talk about stuff and then never give financial details. It always happens in the boating magazines. How someone bought a boat, did it up, and it's now "more than money can buy" but never giving any details. It's a personal sore point.

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As you say, inner city good for younger folks.  On the noise level situation for us seniors, how about a high floor condo in the centre of town?  You won't get much noise if you're 20+ floors up and good thick windows of course.

Some of my folks are from Islington - small world huh.

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papaya

There are no high condos in the centre of Georgetown.  And the UNESCO World Heritage guidelines mean none will be built there.

Bill

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Ha ha

Georgetown is on our top 3 place to live

Where I am there is NO and I mean No unnatural noise 90% of the time.  Doors are never locked even if I go to the Village for 1/2 a hour - keys left in the vehicle overnight Etc Etc

A few helicopters sometimes going to the rigs and the combine in late Summer.  Oh the Roger the rooster can sometimes be bothered.

In summer I sometimes sit in the courtyard at the back of the house with the 4:10.  Shoot a pigeon in the trees that surround the house on 3 sides, send the dog to fetch it, breast it and 15 minutes I am having Warm Pigeon Breast Salad for lunch

We are looking for Culture Shock 

Cheers

JJ

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My top three places to live in Penang would be:

1. Gurney Drive - but not in it's present condition. Wish the local govt would do some dregging and get rid of the silt that clogs up the beach

2. Telok Bahang far away from the maddening crowd but close enough to civilisation

3, Butterworth - for the same reason as no 2.

Cupert

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Oops! I made a blunder. Beg your pardon, Scott. This thread is about GT. 

OK! GT no 4 for convenience and access to hawkers food but if I can restore one of the World Heritage building, it may move up to no 3.

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I think it could be interesting to live in a restored shophouse - if I could afford it. There are some streets in inner Georgetown which are pretty quiet at night. However I couldn't face a big renovation project.

I like to travel a lot so for me a condo is best. I can go away knowing that the security guards will be keeping an eye on my place.

Bill

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Hi Bill

You can employ a project manager to manage the restoration. 

As for being away a lot, I am available for housesitting soon! 

Just kidding!

Cupert

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There are literally hundreds of pre-war buildings in the Heritage zone prime for a TLC, but what I think is worth considering there is only an finite number that can be turned into art galleries, boutiques, wine bars & boutique hotels etc., the rest will residential but who going to buy them after restoration?, one of the things that Scott mentions "no parking" is likely to turn a great many off.
The Malaysia middle class seem to be wedded to their motor cars and are unlikely to move back into the city centre, so that leaves romantic dreamers & expats like myself!. Still, its a nice dream. Regards Rob

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I mentioned in another thread I have purchased a shophouse in the buffer zone of the World Heritage Site. My next door neighbor, an Australian and Brit have four houses in the street. It can be noisy at night but they are proposing to put double insulated windows in (none at the moment) and AC the place once they finally move here.

The difficulty I face is that where we are is probably more a commercial zone and not a residential zone although as the name implies it is a shop house so how to do the renovations is a bit of a quandary for the moment.

Another issue is the property income/value relationship. Prices are high and rising while incomes are low and not. The same can be said for condos. A great number of investment condos are vacant and find it difficult to find tenants who will pay the rent. We are trying to conceive a means of changing that through my development company at Redcoat Developments that takes a more social development approach and perhaps by pulling a group of like minded investors into a pool that can make it happen and achieve a social development program at the same time.

The government agency Khazanah has recently had a property usage survey done that will be release soon. It describes every property in the zone, what is happening so far as businesses and residents. It might be useful once it is published to get a better feel for the area.


 

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papaya

There are no high condos in the centre of Georgetown.  And the UNESCO World Heritage guidelines mean none will be built there.

Bill

Cough cough

I stayed here recently for a couple of weeks
Technically not the centre, but close enough.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=430442
http://www.penangtimessquare.com/

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A bit shocking as I all the while thought that the fund could have already been given to Penang!


Allocate us more funds, says CM

.......................“The granting of RM30mil in heritage conservation funds for Malacca and none for Penang is a travesty of justice and a great disservice towards Penang, that was promised RM25mil and got nothing,” he said in the statement......................

http://thestar.com.my/metro/story.asp?file=/2010/7/7/north/6617721&sec=North

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Costa, can the UN intervene at all?  After all, it is their designated heritage site isn't it?  Anything that us mere mortals can do to help, like rant around the internet.

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Hi Breathless,

I inspected Times Square when recently in Penang.

Mind if I ask how you found it living there ?

Cheers,

James

Cough cough

I stayed here recently for a couple of weeks
Technically not the centre, but close enough.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=430442
http://www.penangtimessquare.com/

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Great.
Bus stopped regularly over the road taking you to Komtar and  from there almost anywhere
Restaurants in Mcalister and food street nearby
Sunshine supermarket onsite
Not many people living there at the moment, so quiet

If we were doing one of these apartments for ourselves we would do things a bit differently as far as finish was concerned and in these 2 bedroom 2 bathroom ones the bedrooms had strange (usless) alcoves and the bathrooms are small by western standards and as these sizes and alcoves are part of the concrete structure they cant be changed, but, they are relatively cheap.

Personally, I would look elsewhere but only based on layout of apartment internal walls as we found the location to be very convenient.

The views where we stayed were like this



In 6 to 12 mths time it may well be different as  the newer hotels/apartments on the site will be getting higher, increasing noise and blocking views.


If you were on the southern side facing the pool/mountains/Gurney this would be less of an issue as there will be no building on this site and the view would remain the same.