You read earlier about the overall Malaysian property transaction and value numbers. It showed that perhaps the worst is considered over in 2013. 2014 has showed a little spark of recovery. If you missed it, you can read it here: Malaysia residential property market recovery in 2014
In Penang, the growth in property transactions is higher than the national average. It grew 4.01%. This growth primarily came from the primary market while the secondary market, just like the national has also shown a decline. I think one reason is because the demand for new housing remain high but because of the uncertainty in sentiment, those who can wait is still choosing to wait. Perhaps the sales of ‘chairs’ are increasing in Malaysia. For these people to sit and wait. Haha. The increase in primary is a little ‘crazy’. It went up by nearly 49 percent in 2014 versus 2013. In actual number, this is 4,095 units compared to 2,750 units in 2013. The secondary market showed a slight drop of 4.25 percent. From 14,950 units in 2013, it has dropped to 14,315 units in 2014. Now, for the GOOD news. The value of transactions has seen a slight drop of 1.84% from RM5.89 billion in 2013 to RM5.78 billion in 2014. Refer to the chart for more details:
One very apparent number that we note is the transactions for the properties between prices of RM200,001 to RM500,000 is highest and it has also increased a lot. The typical sizes for these would be those which are below 1,000sf. Check property portals for more detailed prices, especially the secondary ones. The RM500,001 – RM1,000,000 is also increasing and we can safely deduce that these would mostly be referring to units which are above 1,000sf to all the typical landed terrace homes. Yes, for all these, I am referring to the island itself. Of course the prices in mainland for both the high-rises and landed are lower and many times, easily 30 percent lower for similar type of properties.
This gap between mainland and island should be less in future. Read here: Buying Batu Kawan? Same price as island. According to Valuation Consulting & International Real Estate Company Raine & Horne International Zaki + Partners Sdn Bhd’s senior partner Michael Geh, the increase in the transacted units for residential properties priced above RM500,000 could be due to the scarcity of properties priced lower than this. He further said that the current signs do point to the fact that the Penang’s residential property market is looking up again after the bottom in 2013. He mentioned that it would be even better if Bank Negara can relax some of the loan requirements for the buyers as this will ensure a continued interest in the residential property market.
Personally, I think Penang property market is similar to Singapore. Newer and less popular areas, even if within the same island are still priced much lower than the matured or the popular ones. Just look at Tanjung Bungah vs Sungai Ara or Jelutong vs Relau and until today we can still see the price differentiation and the different value that Penangites assign to these places. What this meant to me is that if I am buying for my own stay it may be better to buy in less popular areas because if the people can afford to pay much higher for the current hotspots, they would be able to pay higher for these cheaper areas of today. Of course, for the super wealthy ones, buy anywhere you like most. You deserve this after working so hard to earn more than majority. Happy buying or investing in Penang.
written on 26 Apr 2015
next suggested article: Little impact from GST and CLEAR by August 2015
Leave a Reply