Did you guys catch the full page advert on the Chicago Spire last Saturday? I remember seeing the exact same advert (with different contact details of course) in an in-flight magazine enroute from Zurich back to London; and thought what a peculiar building it was…it looks pretty much like a screw! So it caught me by surprise when I saw the full-page ad being splashed in our local The Star. I started to wonder if Malaysians do have the power to buy into this kinda development, which starts at about USD750,000 (RM2.391million) for the smallest studio unit all the way to USD40million for the penthouse with totals up to 1200 condo units. They have also added a guaranteed 7.5% returns for the first two years.

Anyway, seeing this being launched in KL, this could signal two things: either they have done enough research to know that there are a lot of Malaysians here who are loaded with cash who would invest, or they just had no choice to launch it overseas since the credit crunch crisis over at the Stateside. The Chicago Spire is marketed locally by Rahim-Co Savills.

31 Mar 2008: Offshore: Chicago Spire takes on the world (The Edge)

Singapore investors were among the first few hundred given the chance to cherry pick apartments in the soon-to-be-tallest skyscraper in the Northern Hemisphere, the 2,000ft-high Chicago Spire in the US. Recently, more than 800 people turned up for the private launch on a Friday evening, followed by a weekend property exhibition of The Chicago Spire.

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Planters’ Haven, a whopping 360 acre development comprising orchard homes will be launching its next phase with built ups at about 5000sf. The development was initially launched at about 10 years ago. I remember reading about this interesting development in some property forum sometime back and was mesmerised by it’s offering…a place that would be extremely awesome to own when one retires someday.

Last year together with Canon, they organised a photo taking competition at Planters’ Haven site and the photos that were churned out were simply breathtaking. Pics above are some of the winning entries.

Planters’ Haven is located near Nilai town about 10km to the east of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang and 18km to the south of the new Putrajaya. Access from the KL-Seremban highway is via the Nilai Interchange, which is 25 minutes from the Sungai Besi toll plaza adjacent to the North-South Highway.

More information on the development at http://www.planters-haven.com/. There’s an old article dated back to 1997 with some interesting pricing after the jump.

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City & Country: Your view of the property market and going forward, are you excited?
Datuk K Salman Younis: We are definitely excited. There is a lot happening in Malaysia and we see a lot of opportunities with the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP). We are involved in a number of projects under the 9MP and hope to be involved in more. We are currently selling projects in all of the initiatives announced… the Iskandar Development Region (IDR) and the Sabah and Sarawak initiatives. A lot of the economies are being affected by the slowdown in the US due to the subprime crisis. Most markets are soft and the general feeling is that if the banks declare the full extent of losses by mid-year, the situation should start improving from September.Malaysia, by and large, has not been affected badly and there are many reasons for this – the 9MP, various government initiatives and strong prices for its commodities on the market, among others. The sectors facing a slowdown are the high-tech ones, which are not a major component of the Malaysian economy.Malaysia should continue to do okay. The country has not been affected by the US crisis also because the prices of real estate here are still low compared to the region, making it an attractive buy. We see more and more foreigners coming to buy real estate.

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