KUALA LUMPUR: The government should come out with affordable housing pricing benchmarks that can be used as a guideline within the local property industry.
Rahim & Co Research Sdn Bhd senior manager of valuation Chan Fei Fei said currently, there was no absolute pricing mechanism in place for affordable housing in the country.
“A price tag of RM300,000 may sound very affordable in Kuala Lumpur but in other states like Kelantan and Terengganu, that is not affordable,” she said at a press conference held in conjunction with the release of Rahim & Co’s annual report, the Property Market Review 2024/2025 yesterday.
Chan said hopefully, the government can establish different affordable pricing mechanisms for the different states throughout the nation, which will be helpful in addressing the entire affordable housing issue in the country.
Director of research Sulaiman Saheh at the same event said the issue of housing affordability remained a concern not only here, but also globally. That said, chief executive officer of real estate agency Siva Shanker said the local property market was currently “moving on nicely”.
To a question on whether the industry had reached pre-Covid levels in terms of prices and demand, he said: “As of now, we haven’t. But I am quite confident when the data comes out for the fourth quarter of 2024, we may have a fair chance of breaching that barrier.”
Siva said market sentiment is “quite strong” given that people are starting to put money back into big ticket items like property while developers are scouting around for land.
“The real estate investment trusts have also done very well for themselves, based on the recent results. In short, sentiment is good but the property market has some legs to go before it evens out again.”
Siva also noted that senior living facilities were going to be a growth area in Malaysia, moving forward. “Australia is a leader in this, we are also moving towards this naturally.”
Rahim & Co said yesterday that the local property market closed last year on a strong note, building on a solid nine-month performance marked by increased transactions across all property sub-sectors.
The total volume of property transactions rose by 6.2%, while the total cumulative value of transactions grew by 14.4%, it said.
That said, buyers’ sentiment remained cautious, as many faced the challenges of rising costs and sluggish income growth amidst affordability concerns.
Specific market performances vary between different locations, asset classes and pricing brackets and as a result, the tone for 2025 is likely to remain “cautiously optimistic”, influenced by factors such as fuel subsidy and electricity tariff adjustments, along with global uncertainties, it noted.
The panelists at yesterday’s event also discussed the issue of ageing and abandoned buildings, particularly in urban areas and noted that this remained a concern.
