Innocent or naive buyers interpreted the increase in price as a sign that the property is booming. Agents sweet- talked them further that they had to buy now or else prices would increase even further! So there was a lot of false demand there. It was not supported by real demand but speculation.
Developers just want to sell of their units, regardless how they do it, nothing to be moral about. Need to be careful, price shout by primary market (builder to user) is always not genuine as those from secondary market (user to user). It is actually happened in many developed countries, take UK or Aust for eg, many developers esp those China & malaysia developers come and build condo and trying to sell to their countrymen. Always make me wonder, if the demand is so good, why dont they just sell it to local.... and even the local feel it is expensive and small. Sooner, those who buy from Sydney, London very likely to get burned. Disappointing rental and ppty depreciation.
If all our neighbours say their units are for rentals, it is bad news. We do not know who is going to rent, when it is going to be rented and chances are the tenants are a very mixed type. If it is a luxury one, still not so bad as it is either vacant or the tenant can afford type. If it is a mid price one, then chances are owners will throw prices and all sorts of tenants will come in. Some will share a unit and who knows you have 10 people staying in one unit.
Personally, I will opt for luxury that the rich local johorean want to live, a million ringgit or more but less than 2 million is very common for rich local, i see many of it, G&G, spacious, landed ppty and close to amenities. Two things to be benefit about, there will be real ppl staying, less likely to be ghost town, easier to rent out; and it will be easier to sell off and at least take back your money. Luxury that others doesnt mind vacant or not still seem very investment grade ppty, risky investment,
why others want to buy your luxury when others next door vacant can be bargain for cheaper or others have done their enjoyment of the luxury and want to sell it off. If I buy PH, I will disregard whether it is investment or not, better surrounding empty ppl so I can monopoly the luxury.
Anyway, many vacant luxury is a bad investment. Occupancy rate is important, be it cheap or luxury when it comes to investment. See sentosa cove, shud know what im saying.
Come to think of it, yes, for foreigners, they can probably make more money from stocks in the long term than invest in Medini or other JB properties.
Let me guess, your ppty knowledge, before getting into medini, was pretty much shaped by sg ppty market. Yes, stocks is much less costly to involve but much trickier than ppty to make buy and sell decision. Fry short or long term, factors that you need to take into account is much more than ppty investment and some really need experience eg market psychology. As local johorean, those that i know did relatively well in nusajaya area real estate investment are only those who buy and sell lands....who convince them to do so? certainly not Hutton agents and capital involve is huge and they need to know what is cheap what is not. Until you able to make independent decision, not relying on agents to make buy sell decision, not follow crowd, able to read market movement, market psychoogy, otherwise stock or ppty are all difficult. Do not try to make assumption about one asset class is easier than the other, if do not have critical thinking skill, everything are difficult. Not implying anyone, just some kind warning to forummers.