To those who are waiting for even more “bad news” to happen before buying their first property, think again. Buy objectively and not wait for the lowest price, no one in the world knows when is the lowest price. Perhaps during a crisis but in a crisis, you would not dare to buy anyway. According to a report in The Malaysian Reserve quoting the Malaysia Property Inc’s GM Veena Loh, the government is not likely to introduce more cooling measures. This is based on the latest transactions and even loan approval numbers. Transactions are down while approval rejection is increasing. She further explained that the Budget 2016 is unlikely to even focus on the property sector but would instead on the current economic slowdown and encourage consumer spending.
According to Property Insight’s MD KK Chua, the government may be re-allowing the Developer Interest-Bearing Scheme (DIBS) to spur the sector and even reduce the Real Properties Gains Tax to encourage the ownership among first time home buyers. In Budget 2015, there were some goodies for first-time home buyers including the 50 percent stamp duty exemption and the increased the purchase limit from RM400,000 to RM500,000. The exemption will be given until the end of 2016. DIBS is not my favourite but if this can be given to only first-time home buyers, then I would not say I am against it. Yes, it will spur the market because the demand as at today remain huge. It’s mostly affected by some unrealistic expectations from all parties as well as the negative sentiment which has contributed to the ‘wait-and-see’ attitude currently.
In terms of purchase limit, I seriously would like to reiterate that there are still choices available. The buyers only have to search online as well as open up their acceptance level for areas which are not their main choices. Read here: Buying a new home? Ask why, not just where As for relaxing the lending rules, I would not support even if there are really zero choices available in the market. Be objective, everyone wants to have a healthy market and not a market where majority of everyone are buying beyond their means. Hope everyone remembered the 2008 Mortgage crisis from the largest economy in the world. However, the government (federal and state) needs to speed up whatever plans they have for affordable homes. Start delivering in huge numbers. We must not jumble up all issues together because owning the first home versus making it very easy to borrow are two very different things altogether. Happy waiting for the Budget 2016 announcement.
written on 9th Oct 2015
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