Property Craze in Penang

As of late, a few of my friends were interested in finding a place to call home. Surprisingly most of their haunts were concentrated around the place I stayed.

So this kepo helpful gal will always tag along during the house hunting session to serve as a "second-opinion" observer for them! Hey, to be fair, I was invited alright..
Frankly, I don't mind doing this at all.To me, it would be nice to be able to check out how other house owners decorate their nest. It may be a good place for me to get some inspiration perhaps? :)
Having visited a few properties to date, some of the home interiors were really nice (probably cost a lot too) while some of them were not very well kept, not something that I would want to emulate.

Penang property prices has been skyrocketing like crazy within these few years...It's just ridiculous at times when u think about it..For a decent apartment around 1000 sq ft, the market rate in Penang right now its about RM270k and above! Don't you think that is just too expensive? Imagine as a fresh grad with a starting pay of RM2500 and after two years decided to purchase an apartment. How much would you need to save to be able to afford one? If you could save up like RM1000 per month for 12 months, that would just be RM12000/year.So you would need at least 3 years or more to just be able to afford the downpayment! (this is assuming the person do not have any savings prior to that, or any inheritence or help from family)..Then how about the miscellanous fees like legal fees, stamp duty etc etc? This could easily come out to another 1-2% of the house price....
Gosh...what is wrong with the system here?Who's driving up the prices? investors? or is Penang really running out of land? As a property owner, that may be a good thing of course. But for purchaser, welll, I can just wish them luck!

For some reason, I'm kind of interested in checking out properties although I'm not buying them.I probably got hooked when I started hunting for an apartment myself two years ago..
If only i have some spare cash now, I'll join in the bandwagon too to earn a few quick bucks! *wink*