130,690 houses unsold in Malaysia! Keep it up Malaysians! Bring property developers down to their knees!

Unsold residential units at decade-high, says Bank Negara
Bede Hong
Updated 12 hours ago · Published on 17 Nov 2017 9:55PM
Malaysians want cheaper housing but developers are more interested in ‘prestige’ projects which are beyond the means of the average household. – The Malaysian Insight file pic, November 17, 2017.
THE number of unsold residential properties are at a decade-high, with the majority of units being in the RM250,000 and above price category, beyond the income of most Malaysians, said Bank Negara Malaysia in its quarterly bulletin published today. The central bank also said the oversupply of office space and shopping complexes in the major states is expected to be exacerbated by incoming supply, potentially becoming more severe than during the Asian financial crisis .Supply-demand imbalances in the property market have increased since 2015, primarily on account of the mismatch between the prices of new housing launches and what the households can afford to pay … for more, go to https://www.themalaysianinsight.com/s/23336/

130,690 houses unsold in Malaysia! Keep it up Malaysians! Bring property developers down to their knees!

This is Pulse Of Bukit Lanjan’s fourth blog post this week urging Malaysians to refrain from buying house so as to pressure greedy property developers to reduce prices.

Read these for context:
https://bukitlanjan.blogspot.my/2017/11/bukit-lanjan-greedy-profiteers-property.html (BUKIT LANJAN: Greedy profiteers, property developers, gurus and banks responsible for ridiculous prices)
https://bukitlanjan.blogspot.my/2017/11/bukit-lanjan-malaysians-keep-up.html (BUKIT LANJAN: Malaysians! Keep up the pressure! Don’t rush to buy! Bring property developers down to their knees!)
https://bukitlanjan.blogspot.my/2017/11/bukit-lanjan-malaysians-hit-back-hard.html (BUKIT LANJAN: Malaysians hit back hard on property developers)

It was already bad enough for property developers when a deputy minister revealed on Nov 14 that the number of unsold completed residential units rose by 40% to 20,807 units in the first half of 2017 (1H17) compared to the same period last year.

And on Nov 17, online news portal Free Malaysia Today (FMT) posted a national news agency Bernama report titled “BNM: Property market imbalances post risks to economy”.

“The meat of the report is that Malaysia has a record high unsold residential properties of about 130,690 units until the first quarter this year, mainly for houses priced above RM250,000, while the vacancy rate for office space is expected to be at 32% in 2021,” Gerakan Deputy Speaker Syed Abdul Razak Alsagoff said.

“The situation must now be very desperate for property developers for Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) to come up with such a revelation. But the greedy developers are still stubborn.

“They still refuse to lower the prices of their properties. And they continue to bait houses buyers with gimmicks like free legal fees, free furnishing, free this and that.

“Obviously, Malaysian house buyers don’t buy those sales and marketing tricks anymore. And that is why about 130,690 residential units are now left unsold.

“Yes, Malaysians. Keep up the pressure. Refrain from buying. Only buy low, not high. Keep whatever savings that you have until developers crumble under pressure and start lowering prices of houses to dirt cheap,” he added. 

Property prices climbing beyond the affordability of buyers is not a phenomenon unique to Malaysia. — Picture by KE Ooi
‘Affordable’ homes anything but affordable to build, property experts say
BY A. RUBAN
Monday May 8, 2017
07:09 AM GMT+8
KUALA LUMPUR, May 8 — Affordable housing is a segment with clamouring buyers, but it is also the one that developers are not outwardly interested in supplying. In 2013, Datuk Abdul Rahman Dahlan who was then urban wellbeing, housing and local government minister said there was a 40-per cent shortfall between the availability and demand for such homes. Property prices climbing beyond the affordability of buyers is not a phenomenon unique to Malaysia, but the problem becomes more pervasive when the median household income was RM4,585 in 2014 … for more, go to http://www.themalaymailonline.com/malaysia/article/affordable-homes-anything-but-to-build-property-experts-say#fCuHM2y4kxgEjv5c.97

Syed Razak, who is Gerakan’s nominee to contest N.37 Bukit Lanjan in the coming 14th General Election (GE14), said this was now the best opportunity for Malaysian house buyers to teach greedy property developers a lesson that they will never ever forget”.

“For so many residential units to be left unsold, Malaysians must have for some time already stopped buying houses. Good move, keep up with the pressure and the houses will certainly become much more affordable,” he added.

Here’s the Bernama news report as posted by FMT:

"Nov 17, 2017

BNM: Property market imbalances pose risks to economy

Bernama



KUALA LUMPUR: Imbalances in the property market pose significant risks to the overall economy in the event of a shock, said Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) Governor Muhammad Ibrahim.

He said Malaysia has a record high unsold residential properties of about 130,690 units until the first quarter this year, mainly for houses priced above RM250,000, while the vacancy rate for office space is expected to be at 32% in 2021.

With about 140 malls entering the market in key states by 2021, he said this would exacerbate the oversupply potentially becoming more severe than during the Asian Financial Crisis (1997).

According to the International Monetary Fund, historically housing booms have been followed by busts about 40% of the time, which is associated with longer economic downturns and larger output losses compared to equity market.

Given that they are imbalances in both residential and commercial property segments, BNM in its report, said this is a source of concern as the property sector has linkages to more than 120 industries, collectively accounting for 10% of gross domestic product and employing 1.4 million Malaysians.

Muhammad said the central bank had raised this issue to banking institutions and the exposure of the financial institutions on this sector was still at a prudent level but property oversupply could impact other sectors.

He said borrowers continued to have access to home financing, especially first-time home buyers.

Housing loan approval rate stood above 70%, while the rejection rate remained below a four-year average at 23.3%, he said, adding that financing for speculative house purchases remained muted.

In the first nine months of this year, RM121.6 billion of new housing loans were approved by banks, benefiting close to 300,000 borrowers.

Of this, 60% were channelled for the purchase of houses priced below RM500,000.

He said housing loans continued to grow at a sustained pace of 8.8% this year from 11% last year.

On outstanding loans, about 71% were for the purchase of houses priced more than RM500,000 by first-time house buyers, he added."

N.37 LET BUKIT LANJAN SOAR WITH SYED ABDUL RAZAK ALSAGOFF