I am a lurker there but I find people there are abit biased. I want to get HH for own stay with my ATB tenant and my parents.
Should I invest in Iskandar Malaysia?
- Thread starter freedom2001
- Start date
I am a lurker there but I find people there are abit biased. I want to get HH for own stay with my ATB tenant and my parents.
ProLogic
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HH ish nice environment. Moi ish visit friends there last week. Problem ish must drive out to get good food. Those shops inside the HH notch look appealing leh. Also heard HH just changed entire security company, gotch trespassing case and burglary case. Hearsay hearsay only arh!
ProLogic
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If moi ish gotch some money moi ish also want to buy Iskandar for own stay. Singapore property really ish expensive compared to Johor.
wah killing off a golden goose, wise move
freedom2001
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I think you are being too pessimistic.
It is inaccurate to say there will be no economic or population boom in Iskandar in the future. This is like saying Singapore is doomed 10 years down the road or I see no economic or population boom in Singapore now or in the future.
It is a well known fact that building HSR (High Speed Rail) in Iskandar will have a massive economic spillover effect on the surrounding regions like in other countries where HSRs are built.
Ascendas Park from Singapore is building a 1.5 billion tech park at Nusajaya and will employ a total of 34,000 people. More than 300 Singapore firms have shifted base from Singapore to Iskandar. More will follow as land, rental and manpower costs in Singapore becomes more and more expensive.
Yes, there is a risk, whether in sg or Jb. It depends on how we look at the risk.
5 years ago will be much safer, agree.
Sg condo and HDB rentals will also even more suck as 28,000 new sg condo units come online. We should be concerned about massive oversupply of sg condos and sg hdb flats. A price correction of 10% in sg can easily shave off 50,000 sing dollars off a singaporean's HDB or private condo value.
It is inaccurate to say there will be no economic or population boom in Iskandar in the future. This is like saying Singapore is doomed 10 years down the road or I see no economic or population boom in Singapore now or in the future.
It is a well known fact that building HSR (High Speed Rail) in Iskandar will have a massive economic spillover effect on the surrounding regions like in other countries where HSRs are built.
Ascendas Park from Singapore is building a 1.5 billion tech park at Nusajaya and will employ a total of 34,000 people. More than 300 Singapore firms have shifted base from Singapore to Iskandar. More will follow as land, rental and manpower costs in Singapore becomes more and more expensive.
Yes, there is a risk, whether in sg or Jb. It depends on how we look at the risk.
5 years ago will be much safer, agree.
Sg condo and HDB rentals will also even more suck as 28,000 new sg condo units come online. We should be concerned about massive oversupply of sg condos and sg hdb flats. A price correction of 10% in sg can easily shave off 50,000 sing dollars off a singaporean's HDB or private condo value.
freedom2001
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Yes I read about your article.
Thought provoking indeed.
But the points do not apply to me as I just bought Grand Medini, which has no RM1mil restriction on selling to foreigners, no RPGT etc and basically it is for my own stay.
Thought provoking indeed.
But the points do not apply to me as I just bought Grand Medini, which has no RM1mil restriction on selling to foreigners, no RPGT etc and basically it is for my own stay.
freedom2001
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I just bought Grand Medini for own stay.
It is 1 min walk away from Gleneagles hospital, a massive hospital investment from Singapore with 1,000 beds (bigger than the hospital at Jurong East) and TOP completion in 2015. The design looks extremely solid and fantastic.
The location is very strategic, also only 5 mins walk to Mall of Medini (3 massive phases to be completed by 2017, phase 1 already completed) and LEGOLAND.
This is golden land, future CBD of JB. That's why they won't give you freehold, only leasehold. It's their stronghold and bastion. Just like sg now no more new freehold launches.
Only Affiniti Condo has the best strategic location, just next to Gleneagles Hospital and Mall of Medini, and even nearer to LEGOLAND. Affiniti Condo was sold out in 6 hours.
If want to flip, will target Singaporeans looking for luxury facilities with great security and near to a medical facility where you CAN USE your MEDISAVE to pay for treatment there and wanting to retire somewhere less crowded.
With ridiculous price of SGD1mil for a studio in sg with 99 years lease, its logical to buy a 129 year leasehold north at 5 times cheaper.
Yes, you read it correctly, FIVE TIMES CHEAPER in Iskandar with spa, Jacuzzi, security, excellent location to hospital, mall, leisure theme park, 10 mins drive back to Second Link Singapore and 129 years leasehold. Not many units left. Many snapped up by Singaporeans and Malaysians for own stay.
I suspect some who write pessimistic comments about Iskandar are actually sg property agents and developers trying hard to dissuade people from buying Iskandar property coz Singapore property market is really in deep **** right now, to be honest.
Who will buy sg property
1) with prices now at peak, seriously at RM3000 psf for a Singapore condo..lol...
2) prices sliding southwards
3) rental now in question with massive supply of 28,000 new condos and new Punggol/Sengkang BTO flats
4) sg property bubble closing to bursting
It's scary for sg developer, sg agent and sg investor.
Which last paragraph prove you point on freehold?
It is 1 min walk away from Gleneagles hospital, a massive hospital investment from Singapore with 1,000 beds (bigger than the hospital at Jurong East) and TOP completion in 2015. The design looks extremely solid and fantastic.
The location is very strategic, also only 5 mins walk to Mall of Medini (3 massive phases to be completed by 2017, phase 1 already completed) and LEGOLAND.
This is golden land, future CBD of JB. That's why they won't give you freehold, only leasehold. It's their stronghold and bastion. Just like sg now no more new freehold launches.
Only Affiniti Condo has the best strategic location, just next to Gleneagles Hospital and Mall of Medini, and even nearer to LEGOLAND. Affiniti Condo was sold out in 6 hours.
If want to flip, will target Singaporeans looking for luxury facilities with great security and near to a medical facility where you CAN USE your MEDISAVE to pay for treatment there and wanting to retire somewhere less crowded.
With ridiculous price of SGD1mil for a studio in sg with 99 years lease, its logical to buy a 129 year leasehold north at 5 times cheaper.
Yes, you read it correctly, FIVE TIMES CHEAPER in Iskandar with spa, Jacuzzi, security, excellent location to hospital, mall, leisure theme park, 10 mins drive back to Second Link Singapore and 129 years leasehold. Not many units left. Many snapped up by Singaporeans and Malaysians for own stay.
I suspect some who write pessimistic comments about Iskandar are actually sg property agents and developers trying hard to dissuade people from buying Iskandar property coz Singapore property market is really in deep **** right now, to be honest.
Who will buy sg property
1) with prices now at peak, seriously at RM3000 psf for a Singapore condo..lol...
2) prices sliding southwards
3) rental now in question with massive supply of 28,000 new condos and new Punggol/Sengkang BTO flats
4) sg property bubble closing to bursting
It's scary for sg developer, sg agent and sg investor.
Which last paragraph prove you point on freehold?
Not sure IF ppl "tiongkok" are flogging there invest or not !
Rent or stay is OK but flipping ? Sell to which group of foreigner ?
The pricing is tailored to suit certain group of investors.
As for the chenghu's policy on foreign investors, they are changing like underwear. When property market chui, they relax.
The last paragraph prove my point on freehold.
freedom2001
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What kind of biased comments do they make?
If you want to get HH, better do it fast. Prices keep increasing.
No point waiting.
Like one former at Sammyboy said, if you don't bite the bullet now, you will never buy one.
What's the point of waiting?
Iskandar property certainly has not peaked yet and certainly is not bursting any time soon. The RTS and HSR are not even built yet, so where is the bubble?
Sg condo and HDB owners should be more concerned about sg property bubble bursting big time. sg luxury condo market is in serious trouble and sales of condos have plummeted 50%, not seen before since the last global financial crisis.
If you want to get HH, better do it fast. Prices keep increasing.
No point waiting.
Like one former at Sammyboy said, if you don't bite the bullet now, you will never buy one.
What's the point of waiting?
Iskandar property certainly has not peaked yet and certainly is not bursting any time soon. The RTS and HSR are not even built yet, so where is the bubble?
Sg condo and HDB owners should be more concerned about sg property bubble bursting big time. sg luxury condo market is in serious trouble and sales of condos have plummeted 50%, not seen before since the last global financial crisis.
freedom2001
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Good to hear security at HH is better now.
That is welcome news.
That is welcome news.
HH ish nice environment. Moi ish visit friends there last week. Problem ish must drive out to get good food. Those shops inside the HH notch look appealing leh. Also heard HH just changed entire security company, gotch trespassing case and burglary case. Hearsay hearsay only arh!
freedom2001
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Posting from Property Soul's page (courtesy of Property Soul)
Looks like Singapore property market is in deep **** and trouble. Falling rental, stagnant sales, sliding prices etc.
Achieving a meaningful market correction of property prices
November 5, 2014 2 Comments
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam told the press that there is “some distance to go in achieving a meaningful correction”, hinting that the property cooling measures are here to stay.
I am surprised by Mr Tharman’s creative use of the word ‘meaningful’. It is an adjective or a descriptive word that leaves much room for imagination. It is up to the target audience to figure out the real meaning behind it.
When the government replies with a definite yes or no answer, you are certain what is next.
When the government replies with a vague answer, you are confused what to do next.
When the government replies with a descriptive answer, you are fear of what will be next.
- Property Soul
How to define meaningful?
The word ‘meaningful’ means significant or serious, meaning to say that the government would like to see a sizable market correction before they consider uplifting any buying restriction.
So, what does it mean for this meaningful word? Is it a major correction in price level? A massive slump in transaction volume? A prolonged depressed market? A big drop in the number of first-time or multiple-property buyers? Is it more meaningful to measure in percentage, indexes, values or length of time?
Waiting for the meaningful time
When the Singapore government will call for an election is everyone’s guess. The timing of the next election also gives uphold of cooling measures a whole new meaning.
With a majority of voters who find private properties unattainable or overpriced, it is meaningful to sacrifice the interests of a comparatively smaller group – namely the stakeholders in the real estate industry, including the developers, agents, consultants, mortgagees, landlords and owners. Afterall, it is a great opportunity to narrow the widening gap between the haves and don’t haves in the society.
On the other hand, if relaxation of cooling measures comes too late, and the property market continues to correct itself, it can make the final withdrawal meaningless.
I’m afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.
- Andy Warhol, American artist
Take the example of a primary school student who needs to do correction for a wrong answer. There are still mistakes after the correction and he is asked to redo the correction again. But there is still room for improvement so the teacher asks the student to redo it again and again. When the teacher finally puts that long-awaited tick there, the whole thing has long become meaningless in the eyes of the student.
From 1998 to 1999 and 2001 to 2005, there were countless introductions of property purchase incentives – suspension of land sales, lift of capital gains tax, property tax rebates, lower cash deposit, higher loan-to-value limit up to 90 percent, cash rebates and interest-free loans from the banks, etc. – but every time the market responded with a lower PPI (Property Price Index) and transaction volume compared with the last quarter.
Property, like comedy, is all about timing. Action is futile when it comes too early or too late.
What it means for different parties
We all have our own vested interest. Every time there is a new policy, we give it thumbs up or down depending on how we can benefit from it.
1. The public deserves some meaningful data.
Both the URA and SRX data do not reflect the rebates and subsidies from developers to buyers. Lodgment of caveats is also based on voluntary submission. Property data is incomplete and PPI is inflated. What is the meaning of reporting the data when they do not mean to represent the full picture? (Read more in my previous post Developer invited you to play Project Discount)
2. Home buyers are waiting for a meaningful correction.
Mr Tharman’s words that the government cannot let “property prices run ahead of the growth of household incomes over the long term” are sweet as honey to people looking to buy an affordable private property. His comment especially means something to the home upgraders. They are all waiting for property prices to fall back to a level in par with general affordability again.
3. Sellers find cooling measures too mean.
The cooling measures coincide with market softening and expected oversupply in the next two years. No one likes the feeling of being left holding the hot potato when the music stops. Over-stocked developers and desperate sellers are most likely to be the parties who trigger the domino effect in a market correction.
4. Investors are waiting for meaningful hints to enter market again.
National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan mentioned that there is still room for prices to moderate. The worse the market sentiment, the more often the sellers tell the media that “market shows signs of recovery”, “prices will pick up next year”, “market has reached bottom”, etc. The contradicting comments are confusing investors who are holding their horses.
5. More owners will end up with a meaningless investment.
With the impact of falling rental demand starts to surface, more landlords are feeling the pain of their already very humble return of under 3 percent. It is meaningless to hold onto an investment that can’t generate a positive return.
Owners are also under the constant threats from continuing softening of the market, the possible hike in interest rates, and the unexpected onset of another recession. Those with little holding power are just hoping to survive a meaningful correction with their meaningless investment.
Looks like Singapore property market is in deep **** and trouble. Falling rental, stagnant sales, sliding prices etc.
Achieving a meaningful market correction of property prices
November 5, 2014 2 Comments
Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam told the press that there is “some distance to go in achieving a meaningful correction”, hinting that the property cooling measures are here to stay.
I am surprised by Mr Tharman’s creative use of the word ‘meaningful’. It is an adjective or a descriptive word that leaves much room for imagination. It is up to the target audience to figure out the real meaning behind it.
When the government replies with a definite yes or no answer, you are certain what is next.
When the government replies with a vague answer, you are confused what to do next.
When the government replies with a descriptive answer, you are fear of what will be next.
- Property Soul
How to define meaningful?
The word ‘meaningful’ means significant or serious, meaning to say that the government would like to see a sizable market correction before they consider uplifting any buying restriction.
So, what does it mean for this meaningful word? Is it a major correction in price level? A massive slump in transaction volume? A prolonged depressed market? A big drop in the number of first-time or multiple-property buyers? Is it more meaningful to measure in percentage, indexes, values or length of time?
Waiting for the meaningful time
When the Singapore government will call for an election is everyone’s guess. The timing of the next election also gives uphold of cooling measures a whole new meaning.
With a majority of voters who find private properties unattainable or overpriced, it is meaningful to sacrifice the interests of a comparatively smaller group – namely the stakeholders in the real estate industry, including the developers, agents, consultants, mortgagees, landlords and owners. Afterall, it is a great opportunity to narrow the widening gap between the haves and don’t haves in the society.
On the other hand, if relaxation of cooling measures comes too late, and the property market continues to correct itself, it can make the final withdrawal meaningless.
I’m afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning.
- Andy Warhol, American artist
Take the example of a primary school student who needs to do correction for a wrong answer. There are still mistakes after the correction and he is asked to redo the correction again. But there is still room for improvement so the teacher asks the student to redo it again and again. When the teacher finally puts that long-awaited tick there, the whole thing has long become meaningless in the eyes of the student.
From 1998 to 1999 and 2001 to 2005, there were countless introductions of property purchase incentives – suspension of land sales, lift of capital gains tax, property tax rebates, lower cash deposit, higher loan-to-value limit up to 90 percent, cash rebates and interest-free loans from the banks, etc. – but every time the market responded with a lower PPI (Property Price Index) and transaction volume compared with the last quarter.
Property, like comedy, is all about timing. Action is futile when it comes too early or too late.
What it means for different parties
We all have our own vested interest. Every time there is a new policy, we give it thumbs up or down depending on how we can benefit from it.
1. The public deserves some meaningful data.
Both the URA and SRX data do not reflect the rebates and subsidies from developers to buyers. Lodgment of caveats is also based on voluntary submission. Property data is incomplete and PPI is inflated. What is the meaning of reporting the data when they do not mean to represent the full picture? (Read more in my previous post Developer invited you to play Project Discount)
2. Home buyers are waiting for a meaningful correction.
Mr Tharman’s words that the government cannot let “property prices run ahead of the growth of household incomes over the long term” are sweet as honey to people looking to buy an affordable private property. His comment especially means something to the home upgraders. They are all waiting for property prices to fall back to a level in par with general affordability again.
3. Sellers find cooling measures too mean.
The cooling measures coincide with market softening and expected oversupply in the next two years. No one likes the feeling of being left holding the hot potato when the music stops. Over-stocked developers and desperate sellers are most likely to be the parties who trigger the domino effect in a market correction.
4. Investors are waiting for meaningful hints to enter market again.
National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan mentioned that there is still room for prices to moderate. The worse the market sentiment, the more often the sellers tell the media that “market shows signs of recovery”, “prices will pick up next year”, “market has reached bottom”, etc. The contradicting comments are confusing investors who are holding their horses.
5. More owners will end up with a meaningless investment.
With the impact of falling rental demand starts to surface, more landlords are feeling the pain of their already very humble return of under 3 percent. It is meaningless to hold onto an investment that can’t generate a positive return.
Owners are also under the constant threats from continuing softening of the market, the possible hike in interest rates, and the unexpected onset of another recession. Those with little holding power are just hoping to survive a meaningful correction with their meaningless investment.
ProLogic
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What ish the financing package for GM arh? They gotch hoot any freebies rike free SPA or give discounts/rebates boh? 3 bedder how much arh? Sho from what chiu say this GM ish good for flipping?
freedom2001
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Why Statements Like “Mont Kiara Is Oversupplied” Is Usually Baloney
October 31, 2014 By Khai Yin 35 Comments
Check out my shiny tongue!
Every Malaysian and his chihuahua has got a opinion on where to invest in property. In fact, it’s hard for me to go to a mamak shop nowadays without overhearing conversations about “where is the next property hot area” and stories about someone’s sister-in-law made five figure commissions last month by flipping a high end condo. Indeed, property is one of those topics where every Malaysian thinks that he’s an expert!
On the other hand, despite GoodPlace’s stature as, ahem, the #1 property blog in Malaysia (Google says it!), I’ve never claimed to be an expert in property. Most (all) of my guides are written based on the experiences of the other people I know who have made the riches in the property world by virtue of their proverbial blood, sweat and tears. These are the people who are rich but NOT famous (by design) – as opposed to charlatans who “make” themselves famous so that they can get rich.
And to me, these people are more inspiring than the ‘property tycoon’ wannabe who inherited his Daddy’s business at the tender age of 22 ¼. Just sayin’.
Yes, he did.
Yes, he did.
Opinions Are Like An Asshole, Everyone Has Got One!
I try not to talk about property and business outside of GoodPlace (especially during family reunions!) because my views are often run contrary with what most people believe (for example, this). I used to just laugh off poorly formed opinions, but now I get into murderous Hulk-like rage when I hear truisms like “prices of property will always go up” or “buy more land because they’re not making more of it” or “it’s all about location, location and location“.
Khai Yin's rage
Most GoodPlace readers know that I am pretty hot about Mont Kiara – it’s a nice neighbourhood with near-excellent walkability. In fact, I liked the place so much I produced a Buyer Guide (you can check it out here) which has since been downloaded over 1,000+ times to date. Indeed, I am pretty bullish about Mont Kiara.
Since publishing the guide, I’ve received many emails asking me if I was nucking futs:-
•“Khai Yin, are you nucking futs?”
•“The place is overdeveloped, dude.”
•“Way overpriced. Prices will come down soon enough!” Schadenfreude much? – KY
•“Oversupply situation is pretty bad.”
•“Bad occupancy rate. I heard that [condo name] is practically abandoned.”
The notion that Mont Kiara is overdeveloped/overpriced/oversupplied has been floating around for a good number of years now. For me to stick my neck out and say that “there’s no glut in Mont Kiara” would probably make me as popular as Ibrahim Ali at a Bersih rally. But I’ve done my homework, and I must tell the truth no matter how unpopular it is. There’s no glut in Mont Kiara.
And the next time you hear a “fact” about Malaysia property which gets bandied around like the gospel, remember to put your BS detector up!
chinese-whispers_mini
How To Check If There’s Oversupply In Mont Kiara (Or Anywhere Else)
Now if you’re wondering that the fuss is all about when it comes to the issue of oversupply: here’s why this is important. Property prices (both in the sub sale and rental market) are a function of both supply and demand, and by looking at the levels of both one can “read the market” and make reasonably good predictions about price movements.
Read about how to time the market in this guide.
The problem here is that obtaining “official” supply and demand data in Malaysia is slow, and frankly, a real pain in the butt. I’ve given trying to get timely data feeds from those in the know, and I have hacked up my own method on estimating supply and demand levels purely from publicly available sources available online.
Estimating Supply Levels
Supply levels can be gauged by collecting data from the top three property portals (you know what they are). You can plot out the trend of supply for the property of choice by doing the following:-
1.Do a search for the property name (or area). Also indicate the time period if available (day, week or month) as well as the agent name.
2.Perform the search for all three property portals.
3.Clean up the list by de-duplicating the listings (by identifying the agent name) as well as filtering out fake ads. I personally remove ads which are priced out of whack (typically +/-10% of the mean asking price).
Repeat the above three steps for a period of time (say, three months). At the same time, collate demand data using the methods outlined below.
Estimating Demand Levels
Figuring out demand is even trickier than supply because property sites are not inclined to share this data with its users. However, we have found that Prop Wall shows user views of each listings which can be a good surrogate to the actual searches done by home buyers. See the screen caps below:-
marc-residence-pw_mini
It has been about 37 days since this ad was posted on Prop Wall, and it has garnered some 613 views. This translates to about 16 views a day. Repeat this for a good sample and you will get a fair representation of how “good” (or bad) the demand for this particular property is.
There is, however, a couple of pitfalls associated with this method:-
1.Prop Wall is #3 in terms of usage (according to SimilarWeb) which means that the sample may not be representative.
2.A single user will probably visit a couple of listings which mean that the estimation may be off by a factor of 3-5 times at least.
3.You need to trust Prop Wall’s numbers (that’s all I am saying. Make your own conclusions).
I have another method (with much better accuracy) which involves querying Google and estimating search volumes by doing some sophisticated analysis on the backend. I am not outing this method because, well, it’s proprietary, and you’ll also need a site with large enough footprint (I do) to get meaningful numbers from Google. If you’re interested and you’re more technically inclined than the average Joe, then let me know and I’ll share this method with you (over email).
Once you’ve collated both supply and demand numbers then you’ll need to work your statistical wizadry to draw conclusions. For example, the chart below shows the stacked supply vs demand charts for Kiaramas Cendana for the past few months:-
Kiaramas Cendana Prices
As you can see, the supply levels for this condominium remains rather flat for the past few months while demand is dipping at a fairly slow rate. As such, “oversupply” won’t be a tag that I will slap on Kiaramas Cendana, and looking at the trends, prices are likely NOT to budge much at least until early 2015.
With data sets like this, you also won’t be pressured into making decisions that you’ll regret later (Buy now! GST will make everything more expensive by 15% at least!). As we have repeated this mantra countless of times here at GoodPlace: trust the numbers, not your gut.
But Khai Yin, this sounds like an awful lot of work…
… and it’s true – it’s also mind-numbingly boring and tedious as hell. I’m not going to pretend that this is a trivial exercise because it’s not!
This is nevertheless a good thing – because it means that those who are willing to do a bit of work will have an edge over those who don’t. Case in point: if you’d look at Melanie’s business model (the subject of my past two blog posts here and here), her ideas were nothing new, but her “secret sauce” was her ability to automate the laborious work involved and as a result, she created a profitable, multi-million dollar business while remaining essentially a one-person show.
For the past couple of months we have been cracking our brains here at GoodPlaceHQ trying to figure out how to fully automate the process of collecting online data (like what we have done to calculate GoodPlace Walkability Scores). As a result, we have built a piece of technology that collates (in hacker-speak, “parses“) online data on supply and demand for specific properties (i.e. Binjai On The Park) as well as areas (i.e. KLCC). The data is then processed to calculate the Saturation Index which will represent the degree of “saturation” of a property in terms of supply.
October 31, 2014 By Khai Yin 35 Comments
Check out my shiny tongue!
Every Malaysian and his chihuahua has got a opinion on where to invest in property. In fact, it’s hard for me to go to a mamak shop nowadays without overhearing conversations about “where is the next property hot area” and stories about someone’s sister-in-law made five figure commissions last month by flipping a high end condo. Indeed, property is one of those topics where every Malaysian thinks that he’s an expert!
On the other hand, despite GoodPlace’s stature as, ahem, the #1 property blog in Malaysia (Google says it!), I’ve never claimed to be an expert in property. Most (all) of my guides are written based on the experiences of the other people I know who have made the riches in the property world by virtue of their proverbial blood, sweat and tears. These are the people who are rich but NOT famous (by design) – as opposed to charlatans who “make” themselves famous so that they can get rich.
And to me, these people are more inspiring than the ‘property tycoon’ wannabe who inherited his Daddy’s business at the tender age of 22 ¼. Just sayin’.
Yes, he did.
Yes, he did.
Opinions Are Like An Asshole, Everyone Has Got One!
I try not to talk about property and business outside of GoodPlace (especially during family reunions!) because my views are often run contrary with what most people believe (for example, this). I used to just laugh off poorly formed opinions, but now I get into murderous Hulk-like rage when I hear truisms like “prices of property will always go up” or “buy more land because they’re not making more of it” or “it’s all about location, location and location“.
Khai Yin's rage
Most GoodPlace readers know that I am pretty hot about Mont Kiara – it’s a nice neighbourhood with near-excellent walkability. In fact, I liked the place so much I produced a Buyer Guide (you can check it out here) which has since been downloaded over 1,000+ times to date. Indeed, I am pretty bullish about Mont Kiara.
Since publishing the guide, I’ve received many emails asking me if I was nucking futs:-
•“Khai Yin, are you nucking futs?”
•“The place is overdeveloped, dude.”
•“Way overpriced. Prices will come down soon enough!” Schadenfreude much? – KY
•“Oversupply situation is pretty bad.”
•“Bad occupancy rate. I heard that [condo name] is practically abandoned.”
The notion that Mont Kiara is overdeveloped/overpriced/oversupplied has been floating around for a good number of years now. For me to stick my neck out and say that “there’s no glut in Mont Kiara” would probably make me as popular as Ibrahim Ali at a Bersih rally. But I’ve done my homework, and I must tell the truth no matter how unpopular it is. There’s no glut in Mont Kiara.
And the next time you hear a “fact” about Malaysia property which gets bandied around like the gospel, remember to put your BS detector up!
chinese-whispers_mini
How To Check If There’s Oversupply In Mont Kiara (Or Anywhere Else)
Now if you’re wondering that the fuss is all about when it comes to the issue of oversupply: here’s why this is important. Property prices (both in the sub sale and rental market) are a function of both supply and demand, and by looking at the levels of both one can “read the market” and make reasonably good predictions about price movements.
Read about how to time the market in this guide.
The problem here is that obtaining “official” supply and demand data in Malaysia is slow, and frankly, a real pain in the butt. I’ve given trying to get timely data feeds from those in the know, and I have hacked up my own method on estimating supply and demand levels purely from publicly available sources available online.
Estimating Supply Levels
Supply levels can be gauged by collecting data from the top three property portals (you know what they are). You can plot out the trend of supply for the property of choice by doing the following:-
1.Do a search for the property name (or area). Also indicate the time period if available (day, week or month) as well as the agent name.
2.Perform the search for all three property portals.
3.Clean up the list by de-duplicating the listings (by identifying the agent name) as well as filtering out fake ads. I personally remove ads which are priced out of whack (typically +/-10% of the mean asking price).
Repeat the above three steps for a period of time (say, three months). At the same time, collate demand data using the methods outlined below.
Estimating Demand Levels
Figuring out demand is even trickier than supply because property sites are not inclined to share this data with its users. However, we have found that Prop Wall shows user views of each listings which can be a good surrogate to the actual searches done by home buyers. See the screen caps below:-
marc-residence-pw_mini
It has been about 37 days since this ad was posted on Prop Wall, and it has garnered some 613 views. This translates to about 16 views a day. Repeat this for a good sample and you will get a fair representation of how “good” (or bad) the demand for this particular property is.
There is, however, a couple of pitfalls associated with this method:-
1.Prop Wall is #3 in terms of usage (according to SimilarWeb) which means that the sample may not be representative.
2.A single user will probably visit a couple of listings which mean that the estimation may be off by a factor of 3-5 times at least.
3.You need to trust Prop Wall’s numbers (that’s all I am saying. Make your own conclusions).
I have another method (with much better accuracy) which involves querying Google and estimating search volumes by doing some sophisticated analysis on the backend. I am not outing this method because, well, it’s proprietary, and you’ll also need a site with large enough footprint (I do) to get meaningful numbers from Google. If you’re interested and you’re more technically inclined than the average Joe, then let me know and I’ll share this method with you (over email).
Once you’ve collated both supply and demand numbers then you’ll need to work your statistical wizadry to draw conclusions. For example, the chart below shows the stacked supply vs demand charts for Kiaramas Cendana for the past few months:-
Kiaramas Cendana Prices
As you can see, the supply levels for this condominium remains rather flat for the past few months while demand is dipping at a fairly slow rate. As such, “oversupply” won’t be a tag that I will slap on Kiaramas Cendana, and looking at the trends, prices are likely NOT to budge much at least until early 2015.
With data sets like this, you also won’t be pressured into making decisions that you’ll regret later (Buy now! GST will make everything more expensive by 15% at least!). As we have repeated this mantra countless of times here at GoodPlace: trust the numbers, not your gut.
But Khai Yin, this sounds like an awful lot of work…
… and it’s true – it’s also mind-numbingly boring and tedious as hell. I’m not going to pretend that this is a trivial exercise because it’s not!
This is nevertheless a good thing – because it means that those who are willing to do a bit of work will have an edge over those who don’t. Case in point: if you’d look at Melanie’s business model (the subject of my past two blog posts here and here), her ideas were nothing new, but her “secret sauce” was her ability to automate the laborious work involved and as a result, she created a profitable, multi-million dollar business while remaining essentially a one-person show.
For the past couple of months we have been cracking our brains here at GoodPlaceHQ trying to figure out how to fully automate the process of collecting online data (like what we have done to calculate GoodPlace Walkability Scores). As a result, we have built a piece of technology that collates (in hacker-speak, “parses“) online data on supply and demand for specific properties (i.e. Binjai On The Park) as well as areas (i.e. KLCC). The data is then processed to calculate the Saturation Index which will represent the degree of “saturation” of a property in terms of supply.
freedom2001
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lol ur England a bit hard to understand lei
UOB allows up to 90% financing in Malaysia. A Malaysian agent says "double confirm". Pls check with UOB to triple confirm.
Try buying a sg property with up to 90%...lol
Freebies thrown in to spoil all of you...
- free SPA and loan legal fees!!!
- RM26,000 move in bonus cash back to you!!!
3 bedder - RM850 psf.
HINT A:
Upcoming Medini Lakeside priced from RM1100 psf - RM1300 psf.
HINT B:
Grand Medini Tower A and Tower B now selling.
Upcoming Grand Medini Tower C - will it be cheaper or more expensive? You know the answer.
NO RM1mil restriction selling to foreigners
NO RPGT
Still on a bull run (HSR not built yet, Ascendas Park not fully completed yet, more universities in the pipeline, massive Sunway lagoon - human paradise to the south etc)
A famous property investor from Singapore had reserved not just 1 unit, but 2 units.
Anyone interested let me know, my female lady agent rocks, very professional, patient, helpful and understanding. I bought from her, a Malaysian agent.
PS I don't earn commissions from sharing Grand Medini.
UOB allows up to 90% financing in Malaysia. A Malaysian agent says "double confirm". Pls check with UOB to triple confirm.
Try buying a sg property with up to 90%...lol
Freebies thrown in to spoil all of you...
- free SPA and loan legal fees!!!
- RM26,000 move in bonus cash back to you!!!
3 bedder - RM850 psf.
HINT A:
Upcoming Medini Lakeside priced from RM1100 psf - RM1300 psf.
HINT B:
Grand Medini Tower A and Tower B now selling.
Upcoming Grand Medini Tower C - will it be cheaper or more expensive? You know the answer.
NO RM1mil restriction selling to foreigners
NO RPGT
Still on a bull run (HSR not built yet, Ascendas Park not fully completed yet, more universities in the pipeline, massive Sunway lagoon - human paradise to the south etc)
A famous property investor from Singapore had reserved not just 1 unit, but 2 units.
Anyone interested let me know, my female lady agent rocks, very professional, patient, helpful and understanding. I bought from her, a Malaysian agent.
PS I don't earn commissions from sharing Grand Medini.
What ish the financing package for GM arh? They gotch hoot any freebies rike free SPA or give discounts/rebates boh? 3 bedder how much arh? Sho from what chiu say this GM ish good for flipping?
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ProLogic
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antonpoh
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Firstly UOB let you loan in SGD or RM? And the interest rate is?
Let say you buy at 850psf and it goes up to 1100psf. But exchange rate drop from 2.58 to 3.33 in the next 20-30yrs.
I understand you got the apartment? What is the lease for the unit? 99LH? How much and if it is still available in developer market?
keanteac
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1) Current toll fees increment still worth it to buy a house across the causeway ?
2) Malaysia will implement the VEP soon on top of the current toll increments. Vehicle Entry Permit to be implemented for all foreign vehicles entering Johor: PM Najib
3)Those China developer release so many units to flood the market, do you think you can reap profit when sell it in the near future ? Property Bubble ?
4) RM 1 million rule is that applicable to you ?
5) Intend for own stay or investment ? Any resale market ? Local or Foreigner buy from you ?
6) Safety. Is that any issue for your family ?
7) Any hidden cost for foreigner to own a home in Malaysia ?
8) Bank loan interest okay for you ?
2) Malaysia will implement the VEP soon on top of the current toll increments. Vehicle Entry Permit to be implemented for all foreign vehicles entering Johor: PM Najib
3)Those China developer release so many units to flood the market, do you think you can reap profit when sell it in the near future ? Property Bubble ?
4) RM 1 million rule is that applicable to you ?
5) Intend for own stay or investment ? Any resale market ? Local or Foreigner buy from you ?
6) Safety. Is that any issue for your family ?
7) Any hidden cost for foreigner to own a home in Malaysia ?
8) Bank loan interest okay for you ?
ProLogic
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Moi think that if chiu buy a condo (or landed) that chiu really like and it ish TOP in 2018 and timing swee swee with train infrastructure, then maybe good idea. Gotch better mobility between jiuhu and Singapore liao by then. Only in boleh land then can get swee swee condos at a fraction of price of Singapore condo. Notch to mention JB gotch many many nice places to explore especially if chiu rike to jiak all the time.
freedom2001
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There are 99 yr lh condos in medini. I picked grand medini because it is 129 yrs leasehold, way better than the pathetic 99 yrs lh of singapore codos. Still available from developer. About 850 psf.
freedom2001
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I paid all in cash so bank loan interest not applicable to me. I would rather live in jb than say in paris, where blacks target singaporeans n rob them. I was robbed by blacks in paris, never in jb. The units the chinese r flooding is in zone A. Mine is in Zone B, different market, so no worry. Besides I dont intend to sell. Its for own stay. Buying a sgd1million singapore studio is ridiculous. I can get a huge gated n n landed freehold in jb or buy five studio units there. Singapore also flip flop in its policies w 8 cooling measures.
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