Sunday 11 October 2015

Our home...how different is it compared to the UK?......

The place we live in is called Meru Golf and country Club, Ipoh. It is essentially a golf course or two to be exact nestled in against the edge of the jungle on one side of the valley that is Perak in Malaysia. the official website is here - www.meruvalley.com.

In between the holes on the course they have homes of various styles and sizes, that includes condos and apartment blocks and they are even building more, you can also buy a plot of land on the edge of a fairway and build your own house as many millionaires do (there's not many plots left). The cost of the unit we are in is about 400,000 MR to buy new, that works out at about £60,000. But as a foreigner your not allowed to buy anything under 1,000,000 MR (£150,000) the reason for this is up for discussion and for another day but they have their reasons I guess.

Our rent for a 2nd floor 3 bedroom, 3 bathroom, front and back balcony's (in a 4 floor low density block) Is 2000 MR which is £300 per month, bills are about 200MR per month for electric (£30) that's due to the Aircon how much you use this is crucial to your bill, we hardly have ours on unless its a really sticky in the afternoon or before bed briefly. water bills are nothing basically and you dont have a heating bill....if your cold you just wander outside, that sorts you out immediately....

Balcony view over looking tee shot on the 18th hole

Basic Kitchen but unusual for MY we get an oven (un-yet used) its boiling...
Lounge and dinning area. left balcony and patio doors to the right enclosed music room. 
Dining area.


Front door area we have plants and a table and chair here.

So that's what you get for your money, now if you choose to live outside of a guarded protected monitored gated community then you will pay for the same size property or even larger about 500MR - 1000MR
( £75 - 100) per month, but they claim you would be targeted and robbed being white and having an assumed better salary, whether this is actually true is up for debate, but since being here a penthouse suite in our actual precinct was robbed so I guess it happens, but its normally an inside job as the guards are in on it. Our gaurd, yes we have one sits in his little guard house just down form our condo, so its unlikely well get robbed as he sits there all day and night.

For that rental money we get our stairs cleaned and moped and also all the grass is cut and all the greenery is trimmed with the precinct everyday, so yes i can say with absolute certainty that we all in this precinct anyway have perfectly trimmed bushes. There are no other payments no rates as it were, no council tax at all (the landlord pays those not us). Also we have a swimming pool, although I do have access to two pools one of them is never frequented and so is all mine, the best pool however is at the club a short walk away.

The pictures above are very sanitised and show the apartment as it came when we signed our lives away, but since our crate has arrived from the UK which it did in good time and in perfect condition we have decorated the flat and it looks much more homely and well its us but in Malaysia, we took a lot of pictures from the UK, don't ask why but in retrospect they are the things that are making it look so nice as well as the throws and rugs etc. I even have the hammock set up on the balcony....lush.


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