Living in JB 3 (Johore)

[FHBH12]

Re: Electricity tariff up by 15% from Jan 1

300 kWh is about e consumption by a small household of a 3-room HDB. I think those staying in landed will have to pay more. I hope e $5 RM subsidy remains.

 

[Talking Donkey]

My family and I were caught in a MASSIVE jam today while heading to Tuas. Took us almost 2 hrs to get to Tuas checkpoint from YCK, from 9.20 am to 11.20am. It was a bad start to the day alright. But for some poor soul it was the worst and last day of his life, there was serious accident with a fatality. Saw the body covered under a blue tent near the Raffles Marina exit with police still there when we passed by....anyone else had the same experience as us?

Me too went to desaru today and was caught in massive jam at 10am from woodlands to jb took me 90mins to clear both checkpoint
on the way back to spore at about 7pm saw the massive jam lagi worse than morning for cars going into JB.
from what i see as a frequent traveller to KL the traffic jams seems to be getting worse and worse especially in the evening for cars going into JB and i believe for those who commute to and fro daily has to at least waste 2hrs of their life in his car/bus just to cross both checkpoint,indeed it must be very stressful for them to go through this jam everyday..i am sure both the local authorities knows about it,can do something about it but from what i see they are all jiak liao bee,bo chup,tiada apa and lazy.

 

[whoami]

Re: Electricity tariff up by 15% from Jan 1

300 kWh is about e consumption by a small household of a 3-room HDB. I think those staying in landed will have to pay more. I hope e $5 RM subsidy remains.

Lets say for a 4 room terrace, costing at M$700K. Any idea wats the average mthly expenditure for:

1. Utilities i.e. elect/water/gas (2-units compressor)
2. Maintenance fees
3. Fire insurance (Annual)
4. Property tax (Annual)
5. Residential phone and broadband fees
6. Maid salary
7. 2nd hand car.
8. etc ...

 

[Frodo]

Re: Electricity tariff up by 15% from Jan 1

Finally made the move last Sunday to Johor!

Made my first trip out on bike to Singapore. Unfortunately left home later than intended at 6.40am and cleared Singapore customs by 7.50am. Jam is at Singapore checkpoint for a good 50min. It's a good physical workout having to push 400cc bike all the way through Singapore customs! Maybe really need to consider Kup Kia liao.

 

[FHBH12]

Re: Electricity tariff up by 15% from Jan 1

My estimates are below. I think about $2k RM per month below should be comfortable without a maid.

Lets say for a 4 room terrace, costing at M$700K. Any idea wats the average mthly expenditure for:

1. Utilities i.e. elect/water/gas (2-units compressor): $100
2. Maintenance fees and security fees: $200
3. Fire insurance (Annual): $100?
4. Property tax and quit rent (Annual): $100
5. Residential phone and broadband fees: $100
6. Maid salary: perhaps around $1k
7. 2nd hand car with petrol, tax and insurance: e.g. Perodua ($1k)
8. Misc repairs: $100

 

[jasonjst]

Me too went to desaru today and was caught in massive jam at 10am from woodlands to jb took me 90mins to clear both checkpoint
on the way back to spore at about 7pm saw the massive jam lagi worse than morning for cars going into JB.
from what i see as a frequent traveller to KL the traffic jams seems to be getting worse and worse especially in the evening for cars going into JB and i believe for those who commute to and fro daily has to at least waste 2hrs of their life in his car/bus just to cross both checkpoint,indeed it must be very stressful for them to go through this jam everyday..i am sure both the local authorities knows about it,can do something about it but from what i see they are all jiak liao bee,bo chup,tiada apa and lazy.

If SG customs can clear fast fast , money flowing into Malaysia also fast fast . Is this good economy for Singapore Pay and Pay System ?

 

[FHBH12]

There are no announcements at Singapore other than RTS and HSR, so you can expect no additional links or expansions in the next 10 years. In another words, the jams will get worse. I suppose this is an economic and survival decision.

 

[RedsYNWA]

Re: Electricity tariff up by 15% from Jan 1

Finally made the move last Sunday to Johor!

Made my first trip out on bike to Singapore. Unfortunately left home later than intended at 6.40am and cleared Singapore customs by 7.50am. Jam is at Singapore checkpoint for a good 50min. It's a good physical workout having to push 400cc bike all the way through Singapore customs! Maybe really need to consider Kup Kia liao.

Cars jammed only for ard 30-45 mins usually. Maybe because its a Mon? Try leaving home at 715 am if your work permits it. You should be able to clear SG by 8 to 810 am.

 

[Frodo]

Re: Electricity tariff up by 15% from Jan 1

Cars jammed only for ard 30-45 mins usually. Maybe because its a Mon? Try leaving home at 715 am if your work permits it. You should be able to clear SG by 8 to 810 am.

It was this morning. There are definitely more bikes crammed into that Singapore checkpoint bike area than cars that are jacked up hundreds of metres behind the causeway bridge. I will have to leave home by 6am tomorrow and see how it is. Don't plan to be on the road longer than an hour if possible. Maybe still have time for kopi and papers.

 

[Chocolate]

Me too went to desaru today and was caught in massive jam at 10am from woodlands to jb took me 90mins to clear both checkpoint
on the way back to spore at about 7pm saw the massive jam lagi worse than morning for cars going into JB.
from what i see as a frequent traveller to KL the traffic jams seems to be getting worse and worse especially in the evening for cars going into JB and i believe for those who commute to and fro daily has to at least waste 2hrs of their life in his car/bus just to cross both checkpoint,indeed it must be very stressful for them to go through this jam everyday..i am sure both the local authorities knows about it,can do something about it but from what i see they are all jiak liao bee,bo chup,tiada apa and lazy.

It certainly seems to be getting worse, or is it just because of the hols?jams in SG are also pretty bad, especially peak hours.

 

[curiouscat]

There are no announcements at Singapore other than RTS and HSR, so you can expect no additional links or expansions in the next 10 years. In another words, the jams will get worse. I suppose this is an economic and survival decision.

I don't see how congestion won't be very bad the next few years (until a 3rd link is added). It was obvious several years ago a huge number of condo units (that cost so much they will largely be filled with people working in Singapore) were going to be added every few months for years. This has only just started, yet jams have been very bad quite a bit recently.

Since a 3rd link wasn't added a couple years ago (it should have been finished at least a year ago) things will get bad. At this point there will be a huge delay before the inevitable decision to build a 3rd link is finally taken (places like LegoLand have to be going crazy - they are losing lots of money from people that don't want to deal with huge delays and that will just increase going forward). To the extent other suffer - JPO etc. they will also put pressure on to finally get started on the 3rd link. I can't imagine the huge new theme park will invest much without the shovels starting to build the 3rd link.

The 3rd link is only a temporary band aid to make things not horrible until the MRT can be extended. The MRT is the key to a Singapore-JB city scape really taking shape. Between now and the MRT things in JB will get worse as huge amounts of expensive condos are put into the market and almost no office space is being build that will provide very high paying jobs that can afford those luxury condos.

It is in the interest of Singapore/JB to have very good transportation and allow Singapore companies to move some office jobs to JB. But there on economic conflicts on a more minor scale that can encourage inaction. That will be very costly if that continues to win - as it has been doing so far delaying the 3rd link much too long. It is also probably that not nearly enough attention has been placed at optimizing the throughput of the available 2 links.

The key to getting the transportation fixes in place is likely the same as it is everywhere in the world - those with power telling those mucky around to stop wasting time and get fixes in place quickly. Lots of big money investors starting investments in Iskankar is very good as these people don't want to see 10%-20%… of there potential profits wasted due to bad transportation, then will demand fixes and almost for sure they will get them. Tens of thousands of people wasting an hour and more every day will likely have little effect (if it would we wouldn't have gotten into the current situation).

One way the traffic could be reduced significantly is a big global economic slowdown that then hits Singapore and JB - of course that is a fix that is much worse than the current problem.

Urban planning is very hard. You have to look out decades and even for fairly simple things like adding a 3rd link you need to do things years before the need is obvious to short term thinkers. Singapore has done this incredible well for decades and yet they messed up in the last 10 years. They failed to build enough infrastructure (MRT largely, but probably also housing, maybe buses too?) and allowed far too many people into the country given the urban carrying capacity. I think they are still being much too timid at cutting back the population boom they have been encouraging - but we will see.

Very few places do large scale urban planning as well as Singapore. It seems to me KL should be a big warning example about the huge traffic problems created without good planning. I worry JB isn't learning from the KL mistakes. Once the problems are in place getting out of them is very hard. It seems to me JB is fairly decent now (though mass transit is very poor) but planning for huge growth over the next 20 years is really hard and it seems to me it could very well be setting up for bad transportation issues inside JB (not just with the links to Singapore).

I hope JB has planned well, but looking across the globe, many, many more cities fail to plan well than those that succeed in doing it well. You have to be willing to look ahead and make investments that will pay off decades down the road - many places are just too short sighted to do so and once everyone is mad there really is much to do and what you can do costs many times more than what could have been done if you planned ahead. You have to be very rich as an economy to be able to afford the retrofitting a city to be livable that was planned poorly (and if you have to do this taxes have to go up, costs to business have to go up and other services have to be cut - all of which are bad).

 

[FHBH12]

I don't think it is SG government's interest for SG to be well-connected to JB via roads. Investors and more Singaporeans will invest and spend in JB instead if JB is so well-connected to SG. So expect more jams ahead :p

 

[RedsYNWA]

I don't think it is SG government's interest for SG to be well-connected to JB via roads. Investors and more Singaporeans will invest and spend in JB instead if JB is so well-connected to SG. So expect more jams ahead :p

Actually SG immigration counters are at least 85% full most of the time in Woodlands at least. The less said about the no. of Malaysian counters open, the better.

Of course, SG can also consider copying MY and doing away with hard copy immigration forms that no one looks at. In the longer term, both sides should expand the no. of checkpt counters at 1st & 2nd link, and do a 3rd link at Pasir Gudang-Punggol. In the short term, maybe a KPI of ensuring 85% of counters are open during normal/peak times, go a long way to alleviating jam conditions.

 

[congo9]

Good analysis on the transport situation down the road for JB and Singapore.

I think the Mudlaysian govt is not very interested in all these planning. They are there to grab as much money as possible. The power wranglers at are people on the top like Sultan .... and the business cronies. If you plan long term like 20 yrs ahead, the amount of money to be made is substantially much lesser. There is no incentive for them to plan ahead.

As Singapore grows into some wealth management center regionally, the amount of wealthy people will grow and the less well off folks will be forced into Johor Bahru for their life.

I don't see how congestion won't be very bad the next few years (until a 3rd link is added). It was obvious several years ago a huge number of condo units (that cost so much they will largely be filled with people working in Singapore) were going to be added every few months for years. This has only just started, yet jams have been very bad quite a bit recently.

Since a 3rd link wasn't added a couple years ago (it should have been finished at least a year ago) things will get bad. At this point there will be a huge delay before the inevitable decision to build a 3rd link is finally taken (places like LegoLand have to be going crazy - they are losing lots of money from people that don't want to deal with huge delays and that will just increase going forward). To the extent other suffer - JPO etc. they will also put pressure on to finally get started on the 3rd link. I can't imagine the huge new theme park will invest much without the shovels starting to build the 3rd link.

The 3rd link is only a temporary band aid to make things not horrible until the MRT can be extended. The MRT is the key to a Singapore-JB city scape really taking shape. Between now and the MRT things in JB will get worse as huge amounts of expensive condos are put into the market and almost no office space is being build that will provide very high paying jobs that can afford those luxury condos.

It is in the interest of Singapore/JB to have very good transportation and allow Singapore companies to move some office jobs to JB. But there on economic conflicts on a more minor scale that can encourage inaction. That will be very costly if that continues to win - as it has been doing so far delaying the 3rd link much too long. It is also probably that not nearly enough attention has been placed at optimizing the throughput of the available 2 links.

The key to getting the transportation fixes in place is likely the same as it is everywhere in the world - those with power telling those mucky around to stop wasting time and get fixes in place quickly. Lots of big money investors starting investments in Iskankar is very good as these people don't want to see 10%-20%… of there potential profits wasted due to bad transportation, then will demand fixes and almost for sure they will get them. Tens of thousands of people wasting an hour and more every day will likely have little effect (if it would we wouldn't have gotten into the current situation).

One way the traffic could be reduced significantly is a big global economic slowdown that then hits Singapore and JB - of course that is a fix that is much worse than the current problem.

Urban planning is very hard. You have to look out decades and even for fairly simple things like adding a 3rd link you need to do things years before the need is obvious to short term thinkers. Singapore has done this incredible well for decades and yet they messed up in the last 10 years. They failed to build enough infrastructure (MRT largely, but probably also housing, maybe buses too?) and allowed far too many people into the country given the urban carrying capacity. I think they are still being much too timid at cutting back the population boom they have been encouraging - but we will see.

Very few places do large scale urban planning as well as Singapore. It seems to me KL should be a big warning example about the huge traffic problems created without good planning. I worry JB isn't learning from the KL mistakes. Once the problems are in place getting out of them is very hard. It seems to me JB is fairly decent now (though mass transit is very poor) but planning for huge growth over the next 20 years is really hard and it seems to me it could very well be setting up for bad transportation issues inside JB (not just with the links to Singapore).

I hope JB has planned well, but looking across the globe, many, many more cities fail to plan well than those that succeed in doing it well. You have to be willing to look ahead and make investments that will pay off decades down the road - many places are just too short sighted to do so and once everyone is mad there really is much to do and what you can do costs many times more than what could have been done if you planned ahead. You have to be very rich as an economy to be able to afford the retrofitting a city to be livable that was planned poorly (and if you have to do this taxes have to go up, costs to business have to go up and other services have to be cut - all of which are bad).

 

[curiouscat]

I don't think it is SG government's interest for SG to be well-connected to JB via roads. Investors and more Singaporeans will invest and spend in JB instead if JB is so well-connected to SG. So expect more jams ahead :p

The option isn't invest in JB or invest in Singapore. Those are 2 options. Other options are invest somewhere else and move operations completely away from the Singapore area. Or just don't invest in the Singapore area because the costs are too high (or you can't get workers, or the infrastructure in Singapore is too crowded so you can't expand…) - so investments are just not made.

It is the same thing that happens elsewhere - you have a high cost central city and a lower cost suburban area. There are tensions between those two (or more) bodies - as they are often different tax entities and different elected officials. But for the city to prosper they must integrate with the larger metropolitan area (or growth just slows drastically, even crashes potentially - due to limited space, high costs and businesses options to just go elsewhere). Manhattan the surrounding area is a good example of doing it right over the long term (and they still have had plenty of issues). But both Manhattan and the surrounding areas are much better off due to the cross benefits each offers. Hong Kong is likely another area though I am not as familiar with how well it is done.

I am sure the Singapore urban planners know this. The question is if Singapore still has the ability to think long term and plan as wisely as it has in the past or not. I think the struggles recently open the door to doubt about the willingness to think long term versus giving into powerful interests that don't care what happens 5 years from now they just want to maximize their immediate gains. That is what happens in many places and why places like Singapore did so well for so long. Singapore prospered by provide a much better urban environment (this includes many things, like investing in education, creating a good environment for business but also providing protection from bad externalities [credit crisis, environment damage, overburdened infrastructure…]) in addition to smart zoning and investing in mass transit etc.) than those that gave in to short term thinkers.

Singapore still is significantly better than most other area but there are complications that grow as the population grows… It requires better management to manage Singapore to even more prosperity today than it did to keep things going in 1995. I believe Singapore continues to be acting intelligently the question is if they are slipping some and the challenges are growing whether they will suffer - or will they rally and continue what has been a very good progress for several decades (though most acknowledge there are more issues and frustrations the last 5-10 years).

Johor's situation is actually much easier to manage. Really it is more about not doing bad things than doing anything incredibly well. The issue is when you look around the globe for the last 50 years lots of places have not only not done incredibly well but have done really bad things for their economy. The evidence shows most states/governments will mess up more than than avoid messing up. I think Johor has been doing very well the last 10 years but that is not very long and the situation was not very hard - basically avoid doing lots of bad things and you will do well. If they can continue things will go very well. Also success creates problems - fast growth is hard to manage in urban planning unless you really do smart things. Johor is going to have fast growth and has been having some already. If things haven't been planned for well, by the times problems are visible they may well not be manageable in any realistic way (look at the horrible traffic in KL for example).

Transportation is a big risk of creating big problems, in my opinion. So is not creating enough high paying jobs in JB itself. There are some being created which is good. And their are even more decent jobs being created which is good. But there is too much luxury housing and not enough office building in my opinion for a long term stable, strong economy.

The build up of education and medical and tourism has been very good. Medical especially is great at creating lots of very good jobs (and they will get better over time if things are done right - part of the appeal now is lower costs but over time you can move up the value chain). Tourism (and throw in general retail here) doesn't create so many great jobs but it creates lots of jobs and tourism gives a good source for lots of taxes (taxing people that don't vote is always nice which is why you often have lots of tourist taxes - hotel taxes etc.). Education is decent but really doesn't create a huge number of great jobs.

Banking/finance/insurance would be a good target (especially - back office operations for Singapore, in the next 3-15 years). Technology and internet would be a great area but there is a long way to go - even luxury condos completed this year don't have fiber internet connections that is not the sign of an area committed to 21st century technology. This technology entrepreneurship area is something that needs more support (even Singapore throwing lots and lots of resources into this area struggles to do great things with it but they are having some success). The potential for this technology entrepreneurship is great though, I think, but much more commitment is needed to getting lots of internet and other high technology jobs.

Working in cooperation with Singapore companies could be a win-win for both especially in medical and other high technology areas (as well as finance and also maybe manufacturing).

Some manufacturing is good, I don't see it becoming a huge employer in Johor (but it does provide good jobs - getting some of it in the mix is good. Oil and gas (including palm oil and refining) is also good but again somewhat limited I believe. And you have to worry about the environment being compromised by greedy businesses if the government isn't a strong watchdog - China obviously shows this risk. Shipping/logistics could be a big deal but I don't know realistically if competing with Singapore is likely to be successful in this area.

 

[Narmi]

Wah..just received the latest valuation by My authorities of my jb hse in my sg letter box. Not sure how to react haha. On the one hand happy that the valuation is abt 200k higher than my purchase price. But on the other hand it means more tax to pay at 0.13% of the valuation. But the valuation is below than the 1mil mark though. Of course when convert to sg its still manageable lah..

 

[whoami]

Re: Electricity tariff up by 15% from Jan 1

My estimates are below. I think about $2k RM per month below should be comfortable without a maid.

Tks dude for those estimates..

 

[FHBH12]

Wah..just received the latest valuation by My authorities of my jb hse in my sg letter box. Not sure how to react haha. On the one hand happy that the valuation is abt 200k higher than my purchase price. But on the other hand it means more tax to pay at 0.13% of the valuation. But the valuation is below than the 1mil mark though. Of course when convert to sg its still manageable lah..

When u want to sell u might find e valuation suddenly drops by $400k RM.

 

[Sunday]

When u want to sell u might find e valuation suddenly drops by $400k RM.

hahaha...... this worry me as this become a form of tax collection. lolx

 

[cow138]

Urban development is a tricky thing. But the commitment from the Johor state govt is still unclear.

Recent policy tweaks is making investors nervous.
It seems like Najib is trying but his support and power base is weak.

Recent changes like the change of the weekend timing is a case in point.. potentially shows that there is some conflicts with regards to who is calling the shots ultimately.