Some hilarious quotes in here: A Chinese developer is building a $100 billion 'dream paradise for all mankind'
This Forest City is catching the attention of Singaporeans, Malaysians and Chinese alike, irregardless of whether you have bought it. It does sound like a joke now and might still be a joke for many years to come. Interestingly, we can draw many parallel between what's going on in this Forest City and Australia as a whole. 1. Chinese money is pouring to all parts of the world, not just Australia. We have to learn to live with it. 2. High density living is a thing of future. Normal house and land thing is going to be more and more scarce as times go by. 3. Mega developments surrounding Big cities will be the trend in the future. In this case, the Forest City is banking on the continual growth of Singapore. In Australia's case, it will be Melbourne and Sydney. A few pitfalls regarding this "Dream" though which many have pointed out. Again we can learn from these. This huge development is built in Malaysia which is facing economic problems. Many of the apartments completed in the vicinity are now empty with no one staying. There is not much jobs around so unable to attract people over. With 250,000 apartments looming, this could be a white elephant in the making. Malaysians in general do not like staying in apartments as land are plentiful there. So selling to Malaysians is going to need HARD! The concept is novel but it did not take into consideration geo-politics in the region. It sells the idea of Cash Rich Singaporeans staying in this part of Malaysia which is much more affordable. But it did not consider the "not so friendly" relationship between the 2 nations. During peak time, it could take 4 hours just to cross the custom between malaysia and Singapore. So how attractive could this "working in Singapore and staying in Malaysia" be? Unsurprisingly, the bulk of purchasers are the mainland Chinese who are not familiar with this situation, thinking they are buying into a "Hong Kong - Shenzhen" conurbation.
Anyone volunteering for the Strata Committee (or whatever is the equivalent) in these sites is going to be a sucker for punishment...
I dunno about man made islands in general, let alone in the tropics...Storm surge is real....so are insurance premiums.... Still for a place that's much cheaper than Singapore and is connected via its own road, the idea might have legs. Full points for ambition!
It's too humid in Singapore for people who are not use that that climate. I cannot see many Chinese from mainland moving here if they are from central or north China.