connectivty

hello,

i am in pen and i find that the prices i am getting for renovating my high end condo is painful. i am wondering if it is because i am a foreigner and looked upon as 'can pay any amount due owning high end'. for eg. to fix an extra plug point costs RM 280. and to remove and retile a standard bathroom is RM 7000. my local friends say it is on the high side. happy to hear your views and quotes you may have had. thank you

(BTW, i am always asked the amt i want to spend upfront before any design, quality, ect is discussed). i was also told that locals are more difficult to deal with than expats. forgive me for being so suspiciuos, is it because they think expats don't know the local prices.

Bluenose1

Almost certainly! I mentioned on another thread that even in a shopping mall my Malaysian wife won't let me be seen with her when she is negotiating a price for something - we saved about 500 RM on a Play Station 3 because she told me to wait around the corner until she got a price for it. Only then was I allowed to show my face. Worth hiding for, I reckon! We do this regularly when back in Malaysia. However, if you can speak BM and tell them you know the local prices, then they will be more willing to agree a reasonable price.

pfk98

I've lived in Penang about 13 years (on and off) since the early 1980s. I shop like Bluenose... always asking my Malaysian wife to do the buying. With very few exceptions, the expat is seen as an easy mark by the local business people.

Consider the taxi drivers. The only time an expat gets a fair deal is when he knows what a local pays to go the same route and distance. You have to do the same with contractors. Also, forget about being considerate and polite. That's taken as a sign of weakness... no more Mr. nice guy.

Be clever. Do unto him before he does unto you. Get everything in writing. Strictly insist on completion dates.

Personally, I would sell the unfinished condo and buy an older, finished one that suites my needs. I'd prefer a sharp stick in the eye to dealing with a Penang remodeling contractor :-)

bakedbean

Hi Connectivity and to the forum.

Very little to add to the above... I think everyone is spot on from what I can make out here.

Make sure you get several quotes. You will get some really WIDE range of prices, I can tell you. If you can get a local to help you, that may bring price down. Also try and get a recommendation from friends.

I would recommend our one, but don't feel inclined. Pleased with the end result but it took a HUGE amount of hassling, nagging, chasing, and our contact was a real pain in the bum to deal with.

ex reg

Just to add my 2 cents for Singapore. It may have some relevance up there in Penang.
Last year we moved to a new build with nothing apart from the basics done not even any sockets on the electric lights or any flooring, painting or kitchen appliances.
There's a great internet forum in Singapore called Renotalk and my wife spent hours on that reading asking questions etc.

My missus found 6 or 7 Interior Designers who had good reviews on reno talk ( you can go direct to a contractor here but then you have to do the running around and chasing if the contractor is late, hasn't done a sound job or just doesn't turn up ) and she went to their showrooms and talked to them in detail finally choosing three to get quotes from.
The three came around took photos discussed what we wanted and asked for our budget which we were loathe to give correctly but gave a low ball park figure.

The three quotes came back with varying prices for different items of work.

In the meantime knowing the wooden and homogeneous flooring and granite kitchen work tops we wanted we went direct to the supplier to get quotes so we'd know if we were getting stung and we decided to buy our own white goods etc ourselves. In fact we took the wooden floor out of the contract with the ID and had our guy supply and install because it looked like the ID had loaded that part of the quote with a big %age of his profit. Fair play to the ID he didn't complain.

Eventually we chose the ID we wanted and then set about changing his design to what we actually wanted ourselves rather than his 'far out' suggestions.

So then after signing the contract came the part I was really concerned about - the reno itself.

We were told 6 weeks and as we were having it done over the hungry ghost month were hoping that the contractors would NOT be working on other jobs and could concentrate on ours.
I was also worried about the quality of the finishes and dreamt about days and days of arguing with contractors that the job they did wasn't up to spec.

Any way a long story slightly short it all went really well, ok it took 8 weeks, but the standard was fine to my over critical eye and except for a scratch on the granite worktop which the installer had tried to hide and which we got polished out we didn't have a problem., oh scratch on a mirror and scratch on a floor tile, ( they aren't good at handling scratcheable stuff ) but it was all replaced with no argument.

Of course we were holding 10% back from the ID, in fact it was more like 20% as he wasn't too concerned about his payment schedule, but I think he'd have done the replacement stuff whatever as his reputation on the renotalk forum would have been worthless if he hadn't.

So my worries about the reno were unfounded but I put most of that down to the work my missus did searching the internet and talking to ID's to find one we could have a good relationship with.
We also kept an eye on the reno itself visiting frequently but not getting in the way.

I still can't believe how smoothly it all went and how it only cost just over 50% of my real, but knowledgeless budget.

Since moving in we've visited other units in the block, they all started in the same condition as us, and some are very badly done with poor workmanship.
I'm even more happy with our installation/reno now that I've seen a lot of the others.