With the recent proclamation from property consultancy CH Williams Talhar & Wong that the Kuala Lumpur 'Golden Triangle' has expanded beyond it's commonly perceived boundaries it might come as no surprise that the city is on track to break all previous property price records. The development that has paved the way for this new record is the world renowned Four Seasons Place, with 2 penthouses being reserved for RM37mil each or nearly $12.5m!
This new record comes amidst growing concern that the the Kuala Lumpur office space market may be becoming saturated and over provisioned. Foo Gee Jen, managing director for the Williams Talhar & Wong group was recently quoted as saying “Overall, office space is going to have a very challenging year, especially for old buildings in secondary locations. There will be pressure on occupancies and rents,” in response to the additional 6.7m sq/ft of office space that is expected to come onto the market in coming months. It is thought that over half of this space may be left unoccupied for the foreseeable future.
With ambitious new developments due to be completed in coming years including Tun Razak Exchange, Eco City, KL Metropolis and Bandar Malaysia, this situation is not likely to change significantly in the near term and the effect may well filter down to serviced office providers. It is not unreasonable to expect that with the abundance of commercial real estate due to come online over the next couple of years that there is the real possibility of a price war developing amongst serviced office providers and that there will be some extremely attractive lease agreements available to businesses who are in a position to shop around.