Okay, I admit. I will be 40 this year. So many of my good friends are 40 as well. I was chatting with one friend who has two kids, only one lovely wife and stays in a landed home in Cheras. He said, “property investments must start earlier. If I had known this when I was in my twenties, I would already own a few properties today. Now already 40, how to take risks by buying properties. The prices are crazy. The place I m staying today is already over 1 million. There’s no way I will take the risk and buy. I need to save money for my two kids education. Ringgit is also getting smaller. It’s going to be tough to send them to university in the future.” Well, here’s my thought about university education. Education, really that expensive? As for property investment, even at 40, I will continue to consider if I find a good property deal. There are three reasons why even at 40, we should still consider property as an investment.
There’s still value to be found. Seriously, when we really do follow some properties or areas that we love, there is a probability that we may come across one where the owner somehow just wanted to sell cheaper. Yes, this happened to my friend who bought a condo nearby KLCC for 15 percent lower than the usual market value! The owner was moving out, asked an agent to post the property and within 5 minutes of the property being posted, my friend saw it and called. Viewing was arranged a few hours later and deposit was deposited within the same day! Keep following the property and the area we like. Remember, luck tend to fall unto those who work harder.
Still 30 years lah. Yes, we can still get a 30-year loan even at 40. It’s normally ’35 years or 70 years of age, whichever is EARLIER’ Since we can still stretch this to 30 years, even a RM500,000 property becomes affordable for many households. Well, as long as both the income earners are not driving fancy cars lah. No savings meant no 10 percent deposit and well, no investments. By the way, a Malaysian man would typically live up to 72.7 and woman would live up to 77.3 (As per WHO data as at end 2015) By then, based on the usual property price increase of slightly less than inflation rate, we would still have a home that we could sell and use the money to live till we say bye-bye.
If not property, what else? Let’s face the reality. There are really not that many options when it comes to investments. With property, we can view the place, the surrounding and the area. If we like it, chances are there are other who like it too. We can even compare the prices of similar properties within the area and can even look at the prices in more advanced property markets to understand the potential. This is different from ONLY fixed-deposit because the rate is only slightly higher than the official inflation rate today. It is also different from stocks because we may not understand the business of the company enough. Well known ones are already fully-valued. Unknown ones, we are scared. Haha.
Last but not least, the demographics of Malaysians are still positive. We are expected to become an ageing nation only by 2035. Today, however we can see that the diaper brands for babies are increasing every few months. Kids eat free restaurants are also increasing while even the BIG BAD WOLF has more children books than the adult ones. The signs are there. The question is only whether we have saved enough for a property or not. Happy viewing.
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written on 15 Feb 2017
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