Another related news about this ... In particular, the last few paragraphs
The unfair advantage
Foreigners, with their higher currency exchange, are competing with the locals in the landed housing market.
The hike in property prices of the last two years should be a good enough reason to pull out all the plugs that have stifled home ownership among the people.
House prices in the property hot spots of Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya and Penang have way surpassed the affordability level of the average Malaysians and more proactive measures are needed to extend a helping hand to them.
The latest statistics contained in the Property Market Report 2011 by the National Property Information Centre showed that average house prices climbed 6.6% in the fourth quarter of 2011.
Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Donald Lim rightly pointed out that the Government was worried of the emergence of a real estate bubble and did not want a United States sub-prime mortgage crisis in Malaysia.
The situation has to be addressed urgently before the high property prices cause more hardship to the people. Any further hike in housing prices will aggravate the climbing cost of living and derail efforts to promote home ownership.
Bank Negara's measures to rein in rising property prices and deter speculative property buying, including a maximum loan-to-value ratio of 70% for third-time mortgage borrowers and using net personal income calculation instead of gross income to decide on the quantum of loan approved, are showing results.
Banks should be prudent in their lending practices and if the speculative buying persist, tighter lending measures, like a further lowering of the LVR for multiple mortgage borrowers, should be implemented to nip property speculation in the bud.
However, first-time house buyers should be made a priority sector and they should be granted full financing if they met the lending conditions.
To ensure the home ownership programme will be a success, the efforts have to be undertaken holistically with the ultimate objective of making it easy and affordable for all households to own at least a home each.
The programme needs a masterplan that looks into the overall supply and demand scenario in the property market, and should not be undertaken on a piecemeal basis.
Given the importance of the family unit to the well-being of the country's social fabric, ensuring that every household has at least a house of their own will have many spillover benefits for the overall good of the country.
To address the supply side, sufficient land should be allocated to be developed into affordable housing townships that offer well-planned housing units priced between RM200,000 and RM400,000.
Instead of having different authorities or agencies, a dedicated umbrella body in the like of a National Housing Board should be responsible for all the Government's affordable housing initiatives to plan and execute projects for the 1Malaysia Housing Scheme and My First Home Scheme.
A closer scrutiny on the demand side points to the fact that besides strong buying interest by local purchasers, there has been an influx of foreign buyers, including from the Middle East and China, who have been snapping up local properties, thus contributing to the sharp spike in prices.
The situation is further compounded by the market cooling measures undertaken by governments in Singapore, China and Hong Kong to stem price hikes in their property markets.
Besides making it difficult and costly for their own nationals to buy multiple properties, strict conditions have been meted out on foreign buyers.
Last December, Singapore imposed a 10% stamp duty on foreign buyers to control the high number of foreign purchases.
The aim is to prevent property prices from boiling over which may lead to mayhem in the market should a property bubble happen.
Having seen the effect of the spiralling property prices in raising the cost of living,
I believe the holistic measures to contain property prices in our country should include some form of curbs on purchases by foreigners.
In view of the strong interest for landed housing units and sharp price hikes in this product segment, foreign purchasers should be disallowed from buying landed residential properties, except the super high-end ones.
Like in Singapore, landed housing projects, except the super high-end projects on Sentosa island, is made a critical sector that is only exclusive to the local buyers.
Foreigners should only be allowed to buy high-rise properties that are priced at more than RM1mil and multi million ringgit landed housing.
With these measures, the foreigners with their higher foreign exchange advantage will not be competing with the locals in the high demand landed housing sector which is one of the reasons driving prices to the current high levels today.
bad news....
Govt may double minimum price of houses foreigners can buy
By DANIEL KHOO
[email protected]
RM1mil floor price?
KUALA LUMPUR: The Government is considering raising the minimum floor prices of houses foreigners are allowed to buy to RM1mil from the current RM500,000 in an effort to control the rise in property prices, sources said.
They said such a decision was “in the pipeline” and the implementation would be made by the economic planning unit (EPU) under the Prime Minister's Department currently headed by Minister Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop.
“From what I understand, these revised guidelines have been discussed at the ministerial level and should this be enforced, it will mean that foreigners will only be allowed to buy properties priced above RM1mil. For now, the base price is set at RM500,000 for foreigners. This base price is a bit low looking at present circumstances,” a government source who requested anonymity said.
“The current trend in the property market indicates that prices are still continuing to climb despite measures by Bank Negara to curb property prices from spiralling out of control. We need to act before it goes further out of hand,” the Putrajaya source added.
Another source said the revised guidelines would also consider a slightly lower base price threshold of RM800,000 for residential properties in selected economic corridors such as Johor's Iskandar Malaysia to ensure the development and success of these corridor hotspots.
“This base price will also be subject to reviews by the Government from time to time depending on the inflationary situation of the economy and to keep overall inflation in check,” the source said.
Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Donald Lim had recently told the press that the Government would take “strict measures” to avoid a US subprime mortgage financial crisis after average house prices jumped almost 7% in the fourth quarter of last year despite measures announced by Bank Negara to rein in property prices.
“The Government is worried about property prices causing a bubble and we don't want banks to overlend to the property sector,” Lim said.
Industry sources surveyed by StarBiz said foreigners that tend to buy properties in Malaysia were those from South Korea, Japan, China and Singapore.
“This move will give an advantage to locals, especially those in the middle-income category as locals will not need to compete with foreigners. I am not surprised by this move, but our agency has so far seen mostly people from China and Singapore buying properties above RM1mil anyway,” a KL-based licensed real estate negotiator who did not want to be named said.
“However, we may see fewer transactions from the Koreans and Japanese. Westerners such as those from the United States and Europe won't usually buy. They prefer to rent instead,” the real estate negotiator added.
Meanwhile, the implementation of the higher floor price is expected to have a minimal impact on the property market in Malaysia as official statistics show that only 2.4% (worth RM1.45bil) of transactions conducted in the residential sector last year were worth RM1mil and more.
The Finance Ministry's Valuation and Property Services Department Property Market Report 2011 released last week showed there were 269,789 residential property transactions worth RM61.83bil transacted last year, the highest recorded in the last five years.
“Both volume and value recorded double-digit growth of 18.9% and 22.1% respectively. The All House Price Index surged to 156.9 points in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2011 against 147.2 points registered in Q4 2010,” the report said.
The report said that landed housing was on a “general upward trend” in Malaysia and also attributed the rise in property prices to the Sungai Buloh-Kajang My Rapid Transit project.
“Across the board, terraced houses in KL recorded increases of 8%-13%. Increased prices of landed houses on Penang island were apparent. The highest transacted price of two- and three-storey detached (houses) were at RM2.05mil and RM5.15mil respectively,” the report said.