Malaysia - Housing

[winston]

Economic factors and the property market by p.b. nehru

http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Busi ... ty-market/

[winston]

REHDA foresees challenging year for property sector

KUALA LUMPUR: REHDA is forecasting a challenging year in 2014 for the local property sector, with 87% of respondents in its survey having pessimistic or neutral outlook for the first half of this year.

President Datuk Seri Michael Yam said on Monday the various cooling measures announced by the Government at Budget 2014 is gaining traction and is having an impact on the market sentiment.

The survey also revealed that 74% of its respondents believed that the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) will have an impact on the industry when it's implemented in April 2015.

The survey was sent to 150 members from 12 states across peninsular Malaysia.

REHDA has submitted various proposals to the Government regarding the GST, such as relief for transactions involving affordable housing and the rationalisation of stamp duty on transfer of properties.


Source: The Star

[winston]

House prices expected to stabilise as a result of measures by thean lee cheng

A survey by the Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association (Rehda) reveals that 87% of 150 respondents are “pessimistic or neutral” about the first half of the year.

Analysing prices for the first nine months of 2013, Foo said serviced apartments had the highest price on a per square foot basis at RM609 per sq ft while terraced housing were the lowest, at RM327 per sq ft.

“In the landed segment, he said most prices had doubled over the years. Bandar Utama’s double storey housing was priced at RM280 per sq ft in 2005. It was RM620 per sq ft in 2013. The overall landed sector had average percentage increase of 8% between 2005 and 2010 but hit 18% a year for three consecutive years between 2011 and 2013.”

He came to this conclusion after analysing prices in Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Bandar Utama, Bukit Jelutong, Kota Kemuning and Bandar Kinrara.


Foo Gee JenFoo said gated and guarded housing experienced the greatest increase, averaging 10% between 2005 and 2012 with selected developments having a higher annual appreciation of 14.4%. Detached houses had the highest return at 27.2% per annum followed by semi-detached houses at 17.3%.

http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Busi ... -measures/

[behappyalways]

How MH370 is Hurting Chinese Property Developers
http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2014 ... evelopers/

[winston]

How property is priced by the market by p.b. nehru

Source: The Star

http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Busi ... he-market/

[winston]

Malaysian Property is Still a Good Deal in 2014: E&O Tells Us Why

By Ryan Ong

Source: MoneySmart

https://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/malay ... 0c-;_ylv=3

[winston]

The high-end market in KL just got higher

ABOUT a year ago, the media highlighted the prices of some of Kuala Lumpur’s signature residences. At some of these launches, prices from RM1,650 per sq ft to RM2,500 per sq ft were bandied about without so much as batting an eyelid. Today, prices have moved up to about RM2,500 per sq ft to RM3,200 per sq ft.

Last week, Berjaya Corp Bhd (BCorp) launched The Ritz-Carlton Residences. BCorp declined to say how the market responded to its May 10 launch.

By any measure, the Petronas Twin Towers locality continues to offer some of Kuala Lumpur’s most upmarket residentials despite the current weak market condition since the global financial crisis in 2008.

The Ritz-Carlton Residences located at the Jalan Sultan Ismail-Jalan Ampang intersection is priced at an average RM2,500 per sq ft.

The first signature residences to be launched in Kuala Lumpur was Banyan Tree Signature Residences by Datuk Desmond Lim of the Malton group a few years ago in his private capacity. This project will be linked to Pavilion KL mall. All the units are sold and the project will be ready at the end of this year.

Possibly among the most notable of these branded residences will be The Four Seasons Place next to the Petronas Twin Towers by Venus Assets Sdn Bhd. This is due, to a large degree, to the branding and the people behind it. It is about 70%-80% sold.

Venus Assets is controlled by Ipoh-born Singapore tycoon Ong Beng Seng, businessman Tan Sri Syed Yusof Syed Nasir and the Sultan of Selangor, Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah. The company’s director, Datuk David Ban, also has a stake in the development. The Four Seasons Place is scheduled to be completed next year.

At these launches, two questions are inevitable. What is a signature or branded residence? How different is it from a normal luxurious condominium, the likes of those in the KLCC vicinity?

Both questions are invariably answered by another question.

“Will you be able to request for an omelette at 3am?” asked Tan Sri Syed Yusof Syed Nasir when The Four Seasons entered the market.

At The Ritz-Carlton Residences media preview last week, BCorp wholly-owned Wangsa Tegap Sdn Bhd director Datuk Francis Ng asked: “Will you be able to get a panadol delivered at 2am?” Ng is Berjaya Land Bhd chief executive officer. Wangsa Tegap is developing Ritz-Carlton Residences.

Both have summed up the single factor common in these segment of the luxurious housing market - 24-hour service.

Says a industrial source promoting these units: “We serve a very exclusive clientele. Those who buy into this have arrived, they are savvy travellers.”

They also have loads of cash. Despite the rather weak sentiment in today’s property market, this group of buyers do not have the herd mentality.

Ng says liquidity will not be an issue. “Next year, it may be RM3,500 per sq ft,” he quipped.

Ng says house buyers must not discount two important factors - inflation and the anticipated Goods and Services Tax (GST).

“With today’s inflation, cost will only go up. Electricity tariffs and raw materials have gone up. So property prices will not come down.”

http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Busi ... ot-higher/

[winston]

Property sector to remain resilient

PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian property sector is expected to remain resilient this year, despite the Government’s various cooling measures.

UBS Securities in its report said the local property sector will be driven by favourable demographics, rising urbanisation, low unemployment, and reasonably low interest rates.

“We believe one of the key drivers of the Malaysian property sector is the relatively young population. Around 34% of the 29 milllion total population fall within the 20 to 40-year-old age group, implying a positive household formation trend.

“We believe individuals in this age band are potential home-buyers, with those in their twenties looking to purchase first homes and those in the thirties and forties likely to upgrade to accommodate larger families, or buy a second home as an investment.”

UBS Securities also said more young people are migrating to larger cities/states such as Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Penang and Johor.

“In turn, property developers are focusing on the more urbanised states.”

The research firm pointed out that Malaysia’s unemployment levels have been low, with unemployment rates rarely exceeding 4% of the total labour force over the past 16 years.

“The highest point was 4.5% during the financial crisis in 1998. As the broader economy is performing well, with first quarter 2014 gross domestic product (6.2%) coming in ahead of expectations, we expect unemployment levels to remain at the current benign level.

“In line with the low unemployment rates, we have observed a declining trend in mortgages as a percentage of impaired loans. We expect this to help maintain a sustainable level of demand in the property sector.”

UBS Securities added that although home prices have been on a steep upward trajectory over the past few years, affordability levels have, however, remained at reasonable levels.

“Average household incomes are at four to 4.5 times mortgage payments or put differently, mortgage payments represent 22% to 25% of total household income. We believe this has been facilitated by the longer repayment tenures of up to 35 years from 25 years a decade ago.”

The research house has maintained “buy” ratings on Mah Sing Group Bhd and S P Setia Bhd and downgraded UEM Sunrise Bhd from “buy” to “neutral.”

Source: The Star

[winston]

House buyers still being hoodwinked? by chang kim loong

Conclusion

The biggest challenge faced by prospective house buyers is coming up with the 10% down payment and other expenses which can cost in excess of RM70,000 and above for a RM500,000 property.

Our younger generation who are struggling to make a living will not have enough savings and even for those fresh into the workforce, the funds in their EPF Account 2 is also not sufficient.

Prospective house buyers must save up for their future purchase the moment they start working and forgo certain luxuries such as electronic gadgets and non-national cars.

http://www.thestar.com.my/Business/Busi ... oodwinked/

[winston]

No property bubble in 2014, says Lee by zunaira saieed

KUALA LUMPUR: IOI Corp Bhd founder Tan Sri Lee Shin Cheng said that there would not be any property bubble in 2014.

However, Lee said there would be fewer launches and developers would opt to launch smaller units, he commented during Invest Malaysia 2014 on Tuesday.

For IOI Properties, Lee, who is also its executive chairman noted that the group would launch smaller units in 2014, but coupled with more varieties.

Meanwhile, BIMB Research said in a report last Friday that it expects the property sector’s growth momentum in terms of transactions and prices to be muted as buyers were expected to adopt a wait-and-see approach.

This came given the overall unexciting macro fundamentals and the mismatch of demand-supply scenario.

“The situation is further exacerbated by the Government’s restrictive measures to cap heightening speculation and also property price bubble.

“Hence, we see the consolidation to continue in the near term hence our Neutral rating on the sector,” it said.

Source: The Star