Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association Malaysia (Rehda) has found that only 31% of developers responding to its survey expect more than 50% sales within six months of new launches.
Presenting the property industry survey in the first half of 2015, Rehda president Datuk Seri F.D Iskandar said 58% of the respondents anticipated sales of between 26 and 50%, while the remaining 11% expected sales to be below 25%.
“Sales performance have been on a subdued mode for the past one-and-a-half years,” he told a media briefing on the survey, which polled 125 Rehda members from Peninsular Malaysia.
Iskandar said due to the moderate market performance, Rehda’s Malaysia Property Expo (MAPEX) registered a drop in the number of exhibitors, but the properties showcased and sales had not gone down significantly.
“The survey respondents were pessimistic on the outlook of the property market in the second half of the year, but the level of pessimism is expected to reduce in the following six months,” he added.
Iskandar said the survey showed that strata units dominated the launches as opposed to landed units, mostly in Penang, Selangor and Kuala Lumpur in the first half this year.
He said half of the units launched were priced below RM500,000, while new launches of houses priced below RM200,000 were on the rise.
In their response, the developers said that building affordable housing units was a daunting task as high cost of land acquisition made it economically unfeasible.
They also complained that unsold units increased to 78% in the first half of 2015 from 64% in the second half of 2014.
More prospective buyers failed to secure end-financing, with the percentage increasing from an average 29% in second half of 2014 to 35% in the first half of 2015. – Bernama, September 11, 2015.
*Text: The Malaysian Insider
* Photo: The Malaysian Insider, Reuters