MONEY SPECIALIST

The property market in Malaysia is in for a correction soon due to the global economic slowdown. Slower economy will cool down the demand as consumer confidencel level is low, with many buyers continue to adopt a wait-and-see stance. Generally, property prices is expected to fall by 5-10 percent from the first quarter of next year.

It may not be a rosy outlook but Malaysia’s real estate is resilient enough to withstand the onslaught of the economic turmoil. A housing bubble is unlikely although the market will be depressed by a slew of bearish factors like poor economic data and worries over increasing credit market losses in the US.

In addition, Malaysia’s property prices will not fall as drastically as the prices of properties in Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand next year as the three countries are more exposed to the US-led subprime crises. During the boom period, property prices in the latter three countries’ had risen tremendously over a short period while Malaysia’s only had a gradual appreciation. There is still room to grow in Malaysia so we will definitely fare better.

The prices of certain secondary residential properties could face more pressure next year due to a lack of demand and an increase in supply of completed projects. The situation for high-end condominiums in the KLCC and Mont Kiara areas are getting critical. There would be more pressure on the rental and capital values as many of the projects in the vicinity would be completed within the next one or two years. Supply will be mounting on a monthly basis and this will eventually translate into lower capital values and rental. An easy 15% to 20% shed in values are envisaged for this sector.

The asking prices for middle-class residential properties in general, for example terrace houses in good locations such as Sri Hartamas, Bandar Utama and even Taman Tun Dr Ismail, have already been adjusted 5% to 10% lower to reflect current market conditions. Prices of high density condominiums with a low occupancy rate in not-so-nice locations are about 10% lower now compared to a year ago. Although prices have softened, it might still prove to be difficult to spur demand for such properties.

In the retail sector, there could be an oversupply as there will be additional shopping centres to be completed next year. If the economy continues to deteriorate, the hotel sector will also be affected from fewer foreign travellers. The domestic property prices would further moderate next year and were likely to recover in three years.

In short, domestic prices will unlikely to drop drastically as profit margins of developers are already low and Malaysia had only experienced a gradual appreciation previously. There will be fewer launches due to poor demand. So with the soft property market, it is even more important for developers to produce innovative and quality products.

When people talk about sat nav software, the brand that comes to mind is TomTom. Unfortunately, the biggest player in the sat nav industry has not bothered to provide decent solutions for phones and PDAs. However, there are other software out there that promises to do the same job, like Nokia Maps, MapKing, etc. Here’s one that I’m currently using at the moment on my Nokia N78; it’s called Garmin Mobile XT. I’ve been using it for some time now. Let’s see if it’s up to the mark.

Garmin Mobile XT has different versions to run on Windows Mobile and Symbian S60. The biggest difference between the two is that you can use touchscreen on Windows Mobile to enter command. For the Symbian version, you can use it on Nokia E61, E66, E71, E90, N78, N79, N82, N95, and N96. The maps I’m using is the City Navigator Southeast Asia NT 2008. The software includes maps for Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong and Macau. All of these take about 160MB of space on the memory card.

Since Garmin Mobile XT is just a software, it requires a GPS receiver. If your device has an integrated GPS, simply enable it in the software. Else, you will need to hook up external bluetooth GPS to get the software to work. Since a bluetooth GPS could easily cost RM300, it’s better to just buy a new phone with integrated assisted-GPS receiver (A-GPS).

A-GPS enhances the startup time of the GPS to lock satellites within 30 seconds. This requires data connection, be it 3G or GPRS, to the assistance server that helps to speed up the GPS performance. From experience, it only costs 2 cents for the data connection whenever I startup the software. I don’t mind paying this when I’m able to lock in my location quickly from cold start. Other than that, there’s no other subscription fee to pay as GPS has always been a free service.

The main screen of Garmin Mobile XT is a fairly simple affair. There are two huge buttons to get you moving quickly. The built-in point of interest (POI) seems to be fairly well researched, and in plentiful supply. Weirdly, they are helpfully located within the “Food / Hotels” section – I have no idea what was wrong with “POIs” like everyone else uses. From the “Food / Hotels” section, you can quickly find petrol stations, hotels and cash machines in your local area.

You can set your destination in the “Where to” button. I rarely able to find my destination from the “Addresses” section. So instead of choosing “Addresses”, I would choose “Food / Hotels” and then spell my destination. At least from here, I could easily select my destination.

Once you have set up a route, you are met with a 3D representation of the road and a nice lady telling you what to do. You can change this if you wish as the turn-by-turn voice navigation function has many different voices in the database.

As with many sat navs, the 3D interface looks pretty cool, and is a decent representation of the road ahead. The view will zoom in and out, depending on both speed, and whether there are any turns required ahead. Although this sounds similar to TomTom, Garmin really zooms out – big style. It seems that it will zoom out until the next turn is visible on screen. If you make a wrong turn, the software would quickly recalculate routes so that you can still reach your destination using another route.

Your speed and heading is shown, plus you can access further screens – like the driving / trip time shown above – simply by hitting the soft keys. The 3D view will dim depending on the time, which is a nice touch. These are the day colours but it’ll swap to dark blue colours in the evening. It’s not just the 3D map view either – all the navigation menus will swap to darker colours so you won’t get blinded when you’re trying to navigate in the dark.

Within the Routing settings you can alter what vehicle you’re in. It’s set as “Car / Motorcycle” as default. It does have extra routing functions for different types of vehicles or even on foot – an area where it easily beats TomTom software. You can also tweak whether you’d like to get the fastest or the shortest route, plus you can alter what you’d like to avoid.

Another thing that could be useful is the ability to SMS your location to anyone – those with Garmin Mobile XT installed will see the option to navigate direct to the person who sent the message – those without the software will get the latitude/longitude position that can be put in to Google Maps or similar.

Another cool Garmin feature is “Track logs” which as you might guess, tracks your every move to the memory card, allowing input into Google Earth and other mapping tools. It will also allow you to replay a route. This single feature could be a winner for a lot of people – since TomTom has never bothered with it.

Garmin Mobile XT is a good piece of software. It works on all sorts of devices from a single card. My criticism is sadly due to the lack of thought put into some of the design work, and default settings. The navigation screen also updates far too slow – sometimes, but not always, to the point of being useless. This does depend on the device though – and you will need a decent CPU on board to get the most out of it.

However, what makes Garmin to get a positive conclusion from me, is purely and simply the price. It’s no TomTom, but since that company has all but ditched mobiles and PDAs, it’s good to see Garmin has stuck around, and are improving its software with each release. If you are buying your first GPS-enabled device, then adding Garmin XT to your purchase is an inexpensive way to get started with proper sat nav software.