PROPCAFE™ Review : Jade Hills By Gamuda Land

Jade Hills by Gamuda Land

Good things takes time.

A good cuppa coffee takes time to brew.

A good PROPCAFE article takes more than 200 man hours to compose.

A good township takes years, more than a decade to be developed.

A good movie with a good story line can take years to be made to movies and ‘The Dark Force’ can ninja up your mind for decades.

And here we are about to tell a story that as it started 10 years ago…

Music rolls…

Long time ago, in a galaxy far far away…….

The recent Starwars episode The Last Jedi still stayed strongly in this writer mind…

Well, this is how influential when a good visual with story can do to people.

And we believe the story of Jade Hills will be able to captive to you as well, like this story:

Some of us here may have heard of Jade Hills long time ago.

2017 marks the 10 year anniversary of Jade Hills. Yes it was 10 years ago, Jade Hills township development was introduced to the Satay Town named Kajang in Selangor by Gamuda Land.

 

Location of Jade Hills

Jade Hills is at the birth place of best Satay in this world, Kajang. Jade Hills is located within Bukit Angkat, west of Sungai Chua.

Waze app will be able to easily take you to Jade Hills, just search for Jade Hills by Gamuda Land.

Accessibility

Jade Hills is accessible by the following major highways:

1. Via SILK
2. Via SKVE to SILK
3. Via North South Highway to SILK
4. Cheras Kajang Highway to SILK
5. Sungei Besi (Besraya)
6. Via Lekas to SILK

In future there will be another north bound access Balakong expected to be ready in end 2018. We will talk about the details later.

 

Our thought on Jade Hills location

If you using from the main Jade Hills access at Silk Highway, exit 1812 Bukit Angkat, you still need to drive a good 2km to come to Jade Hills grand entrance. While you have to pass by industrial area where Muda Paper Mills and other light industrial factory situated. Those who are not familiar with this area, this will be a deal breaker. Many would thought it is out your mind to spend good money on a secluded area.

However if you know are familiar with this area, there are plenty of options to travel to Jade Hills.

Jade Hills is smacked in the middle between Country Heights, Gita Bayu, Balakong and Sungai Chua, some people told us, “Sungai Chua is the real Kajang”. This statement really is controversial but let’s not dwell in to that.

Back to access of Jade Hills from the Jade Hills Jade Square main entry statement (“grand entrance”), Persiaran Jade Hillls Utama.

There are 4 options to head to down town heart of KL, KLCC.

1. Via Silk, Cheras Kajang Highway, via Jalan Loke View 26km
2. Via Silk, Cheras Kajang Highway, via Sungei Besi Highway 26km
3. Via Jalan Perindustrian Balakong, Sungei Besi Highway 27km
4. North South Highway 29km

While to western part of KL, Bangsar South, Bricksfields, Kerinchi, Damansara, one can use the Lebuhraya Hubungan Timur Barat or the Salak Highway, close to 30km.

We can pretty much sum up, there are many options to access to Jade Hills. However there are caveats to it, “The distance and time”.

Jade Hills is 10km within mature town such as Putrajaya, IOI City Mall, Kajang, Saujana Impian, Bangi, Seri Kembangan so your daily life is evolving around these areas, great!

Anywhere else, you need to drive approximately 15-25km to reach destinations and we meant areas like Cheras (real Cheras),Puchong, Taman Desa, Old Klang Road, Semenyih.

Going to west bound Petaling Jaya, Damansara, Subang Jaya, Klang, will take more than 35km.

So it really depends what areas in Klang Valley that you normally frequent, where is your personal COG (center of gravity).

Kajang is definitely not far from KL. But to people out there who frequent other popular hotspots in Klang Valley such as Bangsar, Subang Jaya, Mon’t Kiara, Publika or Petaling Jaya, Shah Alam, Klang, to these people, Kajang is another universe away, we would say it is pretty far.

 

Jade Hills Township Review and Analysis

We wouldn’t be surprised till now some of you may still have no idea about what are we talking about. Don’t worry mates we feel you. Anyway, location alone for Jade Hills would not cut it. It has to be more than just location. So what is in for Jade Hills?

Here we are given rare opportunity to ‘sneak in’ and explore each aspects township Jade Hills and we will share in all here from insider’s perspective, bear with us and we shall dissect into pieces and assemble it, analyse it the PROPCAFE way.

 

Surrounding amenities

99 Speedmart & 7-11 0km
Wet market at Sungai Chua 4km
Tesco Kajang 4km
Giant Kajang 4km
Banks PBB & HLBB at Sungai Chua Kajang 4km
Petro station at Sungai Chua Kajang 4km
KVMRT Kajang Station 5km
IOI City Mall at Putrajaya 8km

Notable Schools, universities nearby Jade Hills approximately 20km away
Eaton International school 1km (within Jade Hills township)
Australian International School
Tanarata International School
The Alice Smith School
Universiti Putra Malaysia
Universiti Tenaga Malaysia
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus

 

Master plan, concept

We will skip the sugar coating of putting bombastic vocab to describe Jade Hills township, rather we will put what we saw with our eyes. Jade Hills is a 338 acre township development developed by Gamuda Land. Sat on an undulating hilly land. The followings are the major components of Jade Hills township.

The Lakes. The most premium precinct with lake fronting residential semi-d and bungalows units

The Gardens. Residential bungalow, semi-d and terrace featuring sculptured landscape and theme gardens

The Hills. Residential semi-d, linked semi-d and terrace sat around the apex of Jade Hills, as well as home of Hana.

Jadite Suite. 4 blocks of low density residential serviced apartments located at the southeast fringe of Jade Hills township.

Jade Square and Commerce Village are made of up 2-3 storey shop offices located at the entrance of Jade Hills.

Jade Hills Resort Club is within walking distance from Jade Hills main guard house, it is Jade Hills’s very own recreational and sport club that feature an Olympic size pool, badminton court, squash court, kids pool, gym, sauna, table tennis room and its very own Jade Hills club café.

Eaton International School is located in the southern fringe or Jade Hills township.

Rumah Selangorku is 714 unit affordable homes located in the southwest fringe of Jade Hills township.

 

How Jade Hills begin

The 338 acre land where Jade Hills sat on was previously owned by John Masters Industries Berhad and it was sold to Jade Homes Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Gamuda land in 2006.

Seeing the hugely successful township development in Valencia, Sungai Buloh, northern end of Klang Valley, Gamuda Land hoped to emulate the critical success factors of Valencia and share them with residents of southern Klang Valley.

If one is avid followers of Gamuda Land, you should know Gamuda Land produced several award winning township developments in Klang valley, and they are:

Valencia Sungai Buloh

Kota Kemuning Shah Alam

We will not deviate so much on to talk so detail on these township. But we observed that these township share the following characteristics.

They are developments filled with lush landscape and gardens, beautiful lakes, equipped with private recreational club facilities, quality built homes, premium and secured gated and guarded community living, and some homes comes with golf course view.

Minus the golf course Jade Hills is what we consider similar suite of development.

 

Jade Hills Resort Club

The key attraction of Jade Hills it started 10 years ago was the Jade Hills Resort Club.

Some were taken aback by this majestic oriental themed Club house when it was introduced to the public. To our surprised it does stand the test of time, the fact that its design does gel with its lush green surrounding and the lake complements well with the overall frame. In all it still looked good despite it is already 10 years old.

We found this very interesting piece of information from the crafter of Jade Hills Resort Club. We like this phase a lot and we thought it is the essence of Jade Hills development. It is quite enlightening to hear the thought process of the architect.

“The modernist expression of the clubhouse then creates a precedent that sets a coherent architectural expression for the development

 Whilst the expression is modern, the architectural references are traditional that sets the social precedent for the community”

Come to think about it, good architecture always able to stand the test of time. Now PROPCAFE readers, 10 years on, what is your take on Jade Hills Resort Club today.

Source: http://gsdarchitect.com/articles-3/jade-hills-resort-clubhouse/

 

Jade Hill Resort Club facilities

The Club house is equipped with various facilities, first approximately 2,000 sqft gym comes with all that you need for all level of fitness requirement. It also features reading room and steam bath.

While it also has a Olympic length pool, wading pool, tennis court, basketball court, squash court, table tennis room, child play room, and it’s very own Jade Hill Resort Café.

The Jade Hills Resort Club has also recently added indoor badminton courts, to badminton nation like Malaysia, a right move we would say.

Membership to Jade Hills Resort club is provided to purchasers of landed homes of Jade Hills. Like any typical club membership, the membership is given free to spouse of the family and kids below 18 years old. The monthly subscription is approximately RM106 inclusive with GST.

We understand Jade Hills Resort Club also accepts term membership. If you are interested to find out more on the benefits as a member of Jade Hills Resort Club, please contact +607-87308866 ext.200/205 or email jhrc@gamudaland.com.my.

We walkthrough the facilities of Jade Hills Resort Club, we thought some of them do age a little and they are doing some upgrade and putting new coat of paints.

 

Cari Makan at Jade Hills

What the food options within Jade Hills? There is only a handful.

 

Apart from satay, Sungai Ramal food junction is a must go for those who like cari makan at night.

Source: The Malaymailonline

So you want more food options, no problem… we will name a few more all these all within 10km drive from Jade Hills, google them …

Let’s see we have Satay Haji Samuri, yup this one started it here in Kajang, Rumah Makan Cibiuk Malaysia, Restoran Fei Chui, Restoran K V, Ten Hup Chee Cheong Fun, Restoran Lek Kee, Wong Kee BBQ, Old Man Restaurant, Milanese Italian Cuisine and Awet Thai Garden.

 

The township size, shape up and making of a township

The size of the whole township development is 338 acres. To our books this is quite a sizeable township development, leaning towards midsize. We have seen 100-200 odd acres township development, those we could term it to a small scale one, while major townships may yield from > 500 acres.

The size of township development do sometimes correlates to distance to KLCC.

The further the land from KLCC, you may able to find a bigger scale township.

One critical factor is that undeveloped sizeable plots of lands are really rare in Klang Valley. A different story, if the land is situated far North, or far south of Klang Valley, as these areas are mostly undeveloped. This makes acquiring larger tract of lands for township development to be possible as land cost tends to be more affordable.

Second the bigger the size of the township the more developer has to do. A modern holistic township development may need plan in much more infrastructures such as new highway access, new access road, new primary and secondary schools, hospital, mosque, commercial office, shop lots and even a mall to attract potential purchasers and home owners.

We see this in township such as Setia Alam, Canal City (which consists of Rimbayu and Tropicana Aman), Eco Majestic and Eco Hills. Bigger township development needs to attract mass market home at the beginning to create awareness then when it matures, higher end segment will be eventually introduced. Some of these planned amenities take years to materialize, while some are still remained in planning stage.

Size	Size in Acres	Infras requirement
Small	100-200	Nil to Low
Medium	300-400	Low to Medium
Major	>500	Medium to High
Mega	>1000	Very High

 

Jade Hills township type and anaylsis

As a midsize township development within 30km from Kuala Lumpur, public infrastructure requirement for Jade Hills may not be as strenuous as when compare bigger township development, it has 1 planned international school, 2-3 tracts of commerce square, while the rest are high end landed homes. This is because it is surrounded by mature Klang Valley satellite town, such as Balakong, Seri Kembangan, Kajang, Sg Ramal and
Bangi.

All these older towns were well equipped with amenities as they are well populated and established many years ago.

Brand and product proposition and target audience of Jade Hills

If you look closely into development mix of Jade Hills it is >70% are made of up high end landed homes. The developer in a way is replicating it successful model at Valencia and Kota Kemuning to Jade Hills. So when you come to Jade Hills you will probably develop a similar familiar feeling you have experienced in upscale township developed by Gamuda Land. Gateless home, all year round air tight security, majestic home, wide internal road, thematic gardens, quaint lakes all these are the signature pieces of Gamuda Land township developments.

Very often a successful brand would be able to offer you the similar customer experience and this is what we thought what Jade Hills is all about.

 

Jade Hills 10 years before and after

When Jade Hills was first launched 10 years ago in 2007 to us there was really just high end homes with a resort club. Fast forward to today in 2017, we observed some notable milestones.

 

Commerce Village

The commerce village was launched back in 2012, it was the home of then Eaton International School. Then came a local groceries stalls 99 Speedmart and 7-11, French theme café, Le Moon’s and the mamak makan place.

These were significant, as residents of Jade Hills can run groceries errand just 1-2km from their home, while for resident of Jadite suites, less than 300m apart.

To many outsiders, perhaps it is no big deal.

But to Jade Hills insiders we spoke to Jade Hills residents, this meant a lot. We were also told by local residents, most groceries offer by 99 Speedmart are cheaper than Tesco, Giant! Really? We need to confirm this further!!!!!

Nonetheless, we thought Gamuda could do more to the spice up the commercial activity of Commerce Village. Why? Read down further!

 

Eaton International School

Eaton International School started in 2013 occupying a row of shop lots in commerce village, then it moved to its very own building within Jade Hill last year in 2016. Eaton’s sister school is the Eaton School House that was founded in 2007 in Bukit Damansara, Kuala Lumpur. Eaton International School is a private school, we thought it complements well with Jade Hills township as well as adjacent high end home such as Country Heights Kajang.

 

Broadband ready

Can you imagine living in Klang Valley without home broadband? Yes, back in those day when Jade Hills was still new, even though VP was handed but there was no UNIFI, and some residents actually were made to wait some lengthy period of time to get UNIFI installed.

And those were the days, and we are told that now all Jade Hills homes are UNIFI ready, this is definitely a plus point. Without broadband PROPCAFE.NET pages cannot even be loaded quickly, ok this is not relevant to this review! These days a home is not a home without home fibre!

 

KVMRT Stadium Kajang, MRT shuttle service

KVMRT line 1 Sungai Buloh Kajang (SBK) Line has commenced it full service in October 2017.

Jade Hills is located approximately 5km to SBK34 Kajang Stadium MRT Station. Though not walking distance however the Jade Hills township has provided free shuttle service to the residents of Jade Hill to Kajang Stadium MRT Station, Hospital Kajang & McDonalds . Please scroll down for shuttle bus timing for pick up location and drop off points. Although it is 5km away, it is actually not too far away.

Mainly because getting out the traffic free Persiaran Jade Hills Utama is already 2km, while from the Silk Highway/Sungai Chua junction to Kajang Stadium is 3km away. So a good 10-15minutes car journey will bring you the Kajang Stadium MRT station and Kajang Town.

The shuttle bus stops at key areas in Kajang Town en route to Stadium Kajang MRT. Hence this will be added benefit to Jade Hills residents. As Jade Hills caters to multi generations living, housewives and retirees, or even teenage residents will likely to get the most of the shuttle service.

The McDonald’s stop is approximately 300m walk to Pasar Kajang, this helps the residents to commute to get their groceries. While the Hospital Kajang stop allows residents of Jade Hills to access to medical care when required.
Finally with Studium Kajang MRT at gateway to KVMRT network stations, you will be able to enjoy the ease of commuting to KL, the fuss free, greener way with public transportation

For updated time table and bus route, please refer to Jade Hills Sales Office for details.

 

Residence Management App and paperless communication

Home owners of Gamuda Lands are also able to download the Residence Management App for Andriod and IOS for property management and related affairs.

While this is not state of the art matters, but it shows that the ambition of of Gamuda Land to stay ahead, fulling the needs of modern consumers.

In the Residence Management App, you will be able to send feedback, lodge in visitors, book common facilities, obtain communications, notices from management/to residents, lodge alerts and etc. This is definitely a step ahead of various ad-hoc emails or unorganized chain of email that has minimal traceability record lodgments and follow-ups.

 

Future North Bound Access Road to Balakong

If you coming to Jade Hills via Persiaran Jade Hills, you will notice that at the main entrance roundabout where you see the Jade Hills signage, the road to leading 12 o’clock is direction presently close.

We received reliable information that the North Bound Access road will be open in end 2018. This access road will link the northern part of Jade Hills to Balakong and Cheras Selatan area. It will be a unique selling point in time to come for Jade Hills, as there will be an additional access in and out of Jade Hills.

 

Current launches at Jade Hills (Jan 2018)

First launched 10 years ago, Jade Hills is 65% developed today, with 80% of its launched units sold approximately 70% of the sold units are occupied.

Now at year 10 of the Jade Hills township development, these are the current launches at Jade Hills.

• Hana Garden – 2 and 2.5 storey link semi-d 35x80ft and 3 storey link villas 24x85ft
• Jadite Suites – Serviced apartment, ready to move-in 1,206 to 1,464 sqft serviced apartment
• Jade Square – 2 and 3 Storey Shop Offices, 22x75ft & 37x75ft
• The Lakes Link Bungalows – land area from 4,900 sqft built up from 4,211 sqft
• The Lakes Bungalow – 2 and 2.5 storey, land area from 6,900seqft built up from 5,476 sqft

This review however will not cover these project in details but we promise to cover more especially Hana Garden 2-3 Link Semi-d and 3 storey link villa, as they are hotly previewed recently. The earlier launched Hana terrace which consists of 32 units of two-storey link villas were sold out!

 

Living inside Jade Hills

Instead since we are given the access of Jade Hills, let us share with you some of the insiders’ views of Jade Hills.

The reward and appreciation

In property investment especially township development we always advocate early bird catches worns, for Jade Hills there is no exception as well. The residential properties at Jade Hills for example do enjoy handsome capital appreciation, terraced homes that were launched in 2011 for RM766,000 were able to transaction at RM1,000,000 while semi-d that were launched in 2010 for RM1.3 million will be able to transaction at >RM1.6million. Not bad kan more than 25% capital appreciation.

 

Some units are exclusive with maximum privacy!

Because the development of Jade Hills spans approximately 338 acres some landed units are destined to be further away from Jade Hills entrance  due to Jade Hills adopts “One Entrance” concept for better security control and safety of the township

We take the landed units at The Garden Precinct as example it is roughly 1.5km from resident unit door step to the main guard house.
If your homes are at Evergreen Gardens precinct much better say at 800m from the main guard house.

 

With the thought of exclusivity and privacy of the Jade Hills owner as the utmost top priority, we notice that most landed units are located not near from exits and not visible to the outsiders from the entrance unlike other common gated and guarded development.
Jade Hills landed units do enjoy very quiet living ambience with practically no visible traffics near home, we would say it is very exclusive and private!

However, if you are a resident of Jadite Suite then it is not applicable as you are having practically 1-2km head start from Jade Hills landed homes, likewise 1-2km to reach home earlier.

Commerce Village

We saw some vacancies at Commerce Village, just a thought that Jade Hills with high income residents, potential retailers can take advantage of vacancies at Jade Hills Commerce Village and Jade Square. Retails such as modern café, coffee shop, manicure and pedicure, spa, bakeries, mixed rice shop, would attract shoppers and customers from the vicinity. For reference one can check out how Arcadia flourishes at Desa Park City.

With the planned opening of Northern Bound Road end 2018 perhaps will help spice up the commercial element in Commerce Village. This road will be potentially used by commuters to avoid toll road from SILK to Balakong, Cheras and KL area. Traffic flow are crucial for commercial development and the opening of Northern Bound Road may be able to help Jade Hills Commerce Village and Jade Square. Let’s see shall we.

Marketing resources

How many here really heard of Jade Hills. Heard of it is not enough. The key we thought, how many really have come in to Jade Hills to experience the lifestyle offered by this township. Compare to other developers marketing efforts by Gamuda Land as a whole is less viral. Say compare Gamuda Land properties with Eco World, SP Setia, Tropicana and Sunway, many have heard of them from various medium of marketing channels and communications. To such extend that the hype and excitement that would definitively create interests or generate curiosity to potential homebuyers to find out about a certain development project.

However that is not the case for Gamuda Land, the strong point of Gamuda Land product is end product delivery, we would say always exceed expectation. This was not really being shared extensively!
While we observed other bigger names developer may tend to under delivery product at VP and manage the buyers’ expectation with superior after sales customer service. While top marketing dollars being spent on dreamlike of property visualizations are often being showcased at presales stage.

However, reality is WHAT YOU GET will only be realized at VP.

 

Jade Hills is for everyone?

Maybe. Here’s why.

For the mass market ones – Jadite Suite

We did a roundup in Kajang, Sungai Chua, Sungai Long, Saujana Impiana. Jadite Suite is few notches ahead, there are just far too many apartments just didn’t make the cut, they are not even worth mentioning. Especially in the quality, facilities and maintenance aspects. Jadite Suite is definitely a wise choice for those looking for an upgrade of their apartment.

We liked what we saw, well people, let’s us check out this video and you will know what are we talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JaIW8giYU0&feature=youtu.be

 

For the affluent ones

Go for the landed if you can afford it. That’s our take.

 

A closer look into the profile of Jade Hills landed owners

They are mostly entrepreneurs, business owners, retirees, and then experience professionals. Why Jade Hills landed are the choice of these type of profiles, stay tuned we will share more with you more next time.

Earlier on we talked about, it is far from home to guard house exit. Come to think about it, these profiles often have very flexible office hours, hence travel time to work and obligation maybe secondary, no?
Those who have lots of car, landed homes are for you, check it out people.

 

Conclusion, now is the right time to buy?

Although 2017 marked the 10 year of the making for Jade Hills township however it is only 65% launched. The progress we first thought it was quite slow initially. But having seen Jade Hills starting from scratch to today where you see, a steady growth of residents, an international school, comprehensive residence management application, tried and tested all year round security, maturing trees and landcapres, the lakes, broadband ready, sparks of commercial zone and free shuttle service connection to MRT.

We can see things can only get better in time.

Jade Hills will be slated to be fully developed in 2025. As of now in 2017, it is just half way through.
If you are looking for a home, and upgrade in Kajang, do give some due consideration for Jade Hills, as it may give you a run for your money.

Now that you have heard the Jade Hills story, do you want to be part of Jade Hills story?

Do visit Jade Hills Gamuda Land Sales Gallery to find out more information:
Persiaran Jade Hills Utama,
Jade Hills, 43000 Kajang,
Selangor.

Tel: +603 8741 9890

GPS Coordinates: N 2° 59’ 34.836” E101° 45’ 24.408”

Google maps link: https://goo.gl/maps/38JaaWyfGTR2

(Credits to original owner of the images perused on this review)

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