PENANG suffered last year. While launches more than doubled, sales fell significantly. Most of the units sold were priced less than RM1 million each.
According to the Malaysian Property Market Report 2016, released by the Valuation and Property Services Department two months ago, developers launched a total of 52,713 houses last year, but only managed to sell 16,532 units, or 31.4 per cent.
In contrast, 58,411 houses were put in the market in 2015 and developers were able to sell 42.1 per cent, or 24,588 units.
Penang reported the worst sales performance of newly-launched homes last year. Developers sold 9.9 per cent, or 561 units of the total 5,646 units put up for sale.
This was a big drop from 2015 when developers sold nearly half (48.2 per cent), or 1,131 units, of the 2,348 units launched that year.
“Developers are looking at innovative ways to sell their properties but sales are not moving as expected. Its either they build and sell less, or reduce their selling prices,” said a property consultant.
He said, if you plan to buy a residential property in Penang, whether it is an apartment, terrace house, semi-detached home or bungalow, do your homework first.
“You should always evaluate the property and the surroundings. Don’t depend on the developer’s talk as their plan is to sell to you.
“There is currently a lot of demand in the secondary market, but in selective areas the properties are all below RM1 million. There is interest in George Town, Batu Kawan and Batu Ferringi, for example.
“Property purchasers prefer buying from the secondary market rather than from developers as the waiting period to get the key is shorter and they are buying in a mature area,” he said.
He said first-time home buyers, should look out for PR1MA projects as well as properties in areas like Bayan Baru, Batu Kawan, Jelutong, Gelugor and Batu Ferringhi.
“Properties priced between RM300,000 and RM800,000 have good take-up rate. Some developers are making a smart move by building smaller properties, so they are more affordable for first-time home buyers and those seeking to upgrade.”
Back to the Napic report, it showed that Malaysia’s stock of unsold residential units (completed, under construction and not constructed) stood at 90,491 units as at end of last year.
Majority of the units, or 64,077 to be exact, are in various stages of construction while work on 11,622 units has not commenced.
Johor leads with the most unsold units (16,341), followed by Selangor (14,509), Penang (12,933) and Kuala Lumpur (9,188).
Of the total unsold residential units (90,491), 14,792 have been completed with a combined value of RM8.56 billion and around 30 per cent worth RM2.56 billion were contributed by Johor, which also had the highest number of completed but unsold homes totalling 3,671 units.
In Penang, 1,896 units were completed and the unsold value was RM1.47 billion. A total of 8,119 units are under construction with another 2,918 units not built yet.