Jakarta – A number of residents living in Forest City, Malaysia can no longer afford to live in the area which is now known as the ghost town. In fact, there are residents who then intend to sell their apartment units there.
This is certainly not an exaggeration because of the news of the giant Chinese developer’s failure to pay Country Garden it has resonated and caused a stir. How could it not be, at almost the same time, another giant developer, namely Evergrande, officially announced its bankruptcy with a fantastic debt value of IDR 5,000 trillion.
Country Garden itself is the developer that built Forest City, a mega independent city project that stands on giant reclaimed land in Malaysia.
The project, which is located in Malaysia, is now in danger of stalling after it was long reported by local media as a ghost town.
Quoting Insider, Monday (11/9/2023), built by Country Garden, Forest City can be said to be a very ambitious project. Its area reaches 1,740 hectares, or four times the size of the city state of Monaco. Around 700,000 people were initially expected to live in the residential complex.
But in 2019, only about 500 people lived there, according to a 2019 Foreign Policy report.
An expert who declined to be named for security reasons said the region’s population had grown to several thousand people but was still less than 5% of the expected population.
Country Garden declined to comment on the number of residents in the development.
Country Garden claims that it has sold more than 20,000 residential units through 2022. It is unclear exactly how many units have been built in Forest City.
Prices in construction have soared in recent years. In 2017, apartment prices in Forest City started from 740,864 Malaysian ringgit.
Currently, the condominium apartments being developed are being sold for 5 million Malaysian ringgit. For comparison, the average selling price of property in Johor Bahru, where Forest City is located, is 619,633 Malaysian ringgit.
Quoting Chanel News Asia, although the property appears well maintained by staff wearing Forest City uniforms, there is almost no construction work underway on the land reserved for development.
Chee from Singapore, who lives in Ataraxia Park, told CNA that he was very pessimistic that Forest City’s construction would be completed.
“What I’m worried about is the impact on the value of my property. I bought the unit for around RM 700,000 but now it’s only (around) RM 400,000,” added Ms Chee, who bought the apartment as an investment.
“I’m worried that with this news of potential default (of Country Garden’s bonds), Malaysian developers will stop building the remaining projects and we will see their value fall further in the coming months.”
Construction of the Forest City project began in 2015, with the aim of developing four artificial islands covering a total area of 20 square km.
Since then, development has only reached half of one artificial island which is equivalent to 15 percent of the total area of the Forest City project being developed Country Garden.
(dna/dna)
2023-09-10 23:34:21
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