Mapex 2014 KL @ Mid Valley, Sunday crowd, subdued.

Yesterday, I asked my wife to choose between One Utama and Mid-Valley Megamall. She chose the latter. Today, when I arrived in Mid-Valley I realised Mapex 2014 was on. I used to know all these huge property events, why did I miss it altogether this time? Someone told me about this two weeks ago and I said, if I am in KL, I would definitely drop by. If not for my wife, I would have missed it. I think there are not sufficient buntings on the road. I think they did not spend enough on billboards all over KL. I think their media partner somehow missed telling me. Okay, truth is, I think they missed the ONLINE portion totally. To the organisers, for the next one, do remember the Online portion. If you think the crowd is still acceptable this year, it will start to be less acceptable very soon without an online coverage and I seriously do mean it.
I was there from 1130am till 130pm. I wanted to write bad crowd but then again perhaps this was because 1130am was too early in the morning while noon time till 130pm is a lunch time, of course there are not much crowd. I do not know but if you were there during that time, for MAPEX 2014 that’s considered very low turnout. Some marketers were even sitting down and chit-chatting! Okay, there were a few more crowded booths but majority? No.
I think the lower turnout maybe because 40,000 of them were all waiting to buy the 20,000 units reserved for the married youths from 25 to 40 years old. This was announced in Budget 2015.  Haha. Just joking. Perhaps they feel that this property show is ALSO showing the same properties that they have seen in other smaller shows or every weekend in all the different malls. Is this ‘Property Fair Fatigue’? My friend, Ken of Penang’s major property website, www.penangpropertytalk.com just spoke to me this week about the possibility of way too many property fairs. In fact there were three happening at the same time in Penang on the same weekend! We have never seen such a case before. All three going against each other and hoping that the buyers would visit all three? It’s Star Property vs Ken Link vs Iproperty all on the same weekend of 24-26 October. (I am a good blogger, I give them extra exposure here)
After some considerations, I think there are many other reasons why these property fairs no longer attract the crowds like previously. Besides the reasons above, it’s also because everyone is uncertain about the property market in the near future. I would say negative sentiment is the flavour of the day for now. Perhaps what I believe should happen is happening? More people are going into the secondary market for good bargains today? The prices of secondary market remain attractive even today. In fact a reader just pointed out that Iskandar may have oversupply as a whole but there are some areas in Iskandar where the property price is still extremely attractive and easy to rent out! He gave Bukit Indah as an example.
Hope that more property fairs would understand that it’s not the best way when your media partners are just newspapers. Seriously, you can’t be serious right? Happy Selling.
written on 11 Oct 2014
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