Protecting your home and your investment for the long term

To all PV residents,
a number of us (Larrie, Alex, Allex, Fred, Penn, David) and thanks to Alex of lot 28 for coordinating, have convened this afternoon to review the grave bank account situation and on the quality of the security services rendered by KPD. It is fact the quality of service have deteriorated and we are reviewing options and follow-up actions.

Payment
We would like to urge and remind all PV residents to update your payment - up to either June 2010 or prefereably to Dec 2010 - as these will greatly help to minimise the adminstration burden and more importantly to ensure we have sufficient funding to make longer term commitment to security service company.

Payment is RM100 a month. Bank account info, please refer to Michael previous mail or as posted on the PV blogsite here: http://prima-villa.blogspot.com/2009/10/payment-information.html

As highlighted by Michael, the bank account is now in deficit due to a back log of outstanding payments. We appreciate that most of us are busy and you may have overlooked this. The PV neighhourhood requires your full support to sustain its security service.

Quality of security service
The quality of service rendered by KPD has not met expectations set forth by the neighbourhood committee. We will be following up with KPD, but at the same time the commitee are already exploring other options including inquiry to other security service company, and we would welcome your suggestions and ideas you may have.

The security service at PV currently costs about RM 4000 per month, in order to hire 4 guards to establish 2 guards x 12 hour shifts. After adminstration, expenses, EPF, etc, we understand that each of the guards take home approx RM 700 to RM 800 per month. Assuming they get one day off per week, it works out that each guard earns about RM 2.8 per hour - that includes working the weekends and the night shifts! With such salary, it is not difficult to understand why there is such a high turnover of security staff, and I hope this also sheds some light on the challenges of improving security service at PV.

Protecting your home and your investment for the long term
It should be of little doubt by now that PV is well regarded in Miri as one of better neighbourhoods to live. Whether it is actually a safer neighhourhood is quite another matter, but the entrance with the security guards and the barrier probably helps to enhance it's image, or at best, probably help deterred petty crimes.

The fact is that when the security funding runs out, the security service will stop. And after that, it will only be a matter of time that the security house deteriorates, the barriers will be gone and the committee will disperse. If i were a shrewd investor, I know what I'd be doing with my PV property before the neighbourhood loses its "shine".

There are 200 individual plots in neighhourbood, and when fully developed there will be somewhere in the region of 175 bungalow houses (some with multiple plots). Without even knowing how Prima Villa will shape up, most of us made the right decision and took a fair amount of risk to decide to invest in a property here. Right now, PV is already a great place to live but has great potential to be even a better and safer neighbourhood - but it will require all of the PV residents and owners (even though you may not live here yet) to make the right choice now. I hope it is obvious enough that a decision to contribute to the security fund will not only serve to protect your home, but to protect your investment in the longer run.

These last paragraphs are for those that may yet be fully convinced about contributing to the security fund. You decision, and the collective decision of all residents today, can set things in motion to help make PV progressively a better and safer place to live. When the neighhourhood grows, it is hoped that we will be able to grow the fund so that we can tackle other neighbourhood improvement projects such as landscaping etc for the benefits of all residents.

I apology that this is a rather long email, but thanks for reading if you get this far. Views expressed are entirely mine, and if you find errors in my maths or my logic above, I would love to hear from your. Thanks.

For older stuff go to: http://prima-villa.blogspot.com

Kind regards,
Richard Kho