Someone I looked up to in my ex-company (he mentored me in my career) told me that he thinks Iskandar is a white elephant. He said this just 3 years back, when all the property markets in Malaysia have slowed down. I replied that market slowdown does not happen just in Iskandar. He said there’s just too many homes being built there and there’s not enough Johoreans who is buying or could afford to buy. Actually, whether there are way too many homes or not depend on the number of supply. It depends on the potential demand. Kedah state builds far fewer homes than KL. Number of unsold units there are far higher in terms of percentage. Anyway, let’s look at the potential. We look at just the first P (People) in the 4Ps (People, Price, Policy, Preference)
Article in StraitsTimes.com here. On a daily basis, the jam between JB and SG is pretty bad. It took me nearly 3 hours to cross from SG back to JB just a month ago and the time was 8pm. Well, during holidays, it could well be 4, 5, 6 or even more hours to cross over. Do read the article in StraitsTimes yeah. Anyway, we should understand that IF everyone takes the bus, then every bus will reduce the number of cars tremendously. Perhaps 25 cars per every bus. The jam is due to CARS. Now, for something real. Perhaps ONLY 5 percent of Singaporeans own a car. There’s fewer than 600,000 cars in Singapore (total number of cars) while in Malaysia, over 600,000 cars are sold every year. Can see my meaning, yet? Imagine also if the travel time is just 1 hour while the other 5 hours were spent using money in JB.
Okay, I would like to announce that there are another 90 percent of Singaporeans who are not stuck in the jam because they do not own a car. In fact, even if they were to travel for weekend getaway, JB is still not easy to move around without a car. This is why the potential for a much bigger demand for property is definitely there. The question is how do we get more Singaporeans to travel to Malaysia (not just JB) easily. That RTS will be handy and that High Speed Rail SG – KL will benefit many cities / towns along the route. Happy understanding.
written on 17 Dec 2018
Next suggested article: Recent updateson Iskandar. Ferry, RTS and flights
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