Property prices likely to increase before year-end
The selling prices of residential properties in the country will likely increase by 5% to 20% soon.
Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association immediate past chairman Tan Hun Beng told StarBiz that a price hike was in the offing and likely to happen before the end of the year, as construction costs had increased substantially.
The price of concrete has jumped 32% to RM258 per cubic metre, while steel bar prices have increased 46% to RM4,100 per tonne.
In addition, the prices of metal roofing and c-purlin have increased by 60% and 95%, respectively.
Tan said developers have yet to pass the higher cost of building materials to customers.
“The steep hike in building material costs will impact the selling price of the incoming supply of properties by at least 5% to 20%, depending on their size and location.
“The hike in selling prices is inevitable as developers are already paying substantially more for their raw materials,” he said.
According to Tan, there will also be fewer property launches in 2022 due to high construction costs.
According to the latest National Property Information Centre (Napic) report, some 54,836 houses will enter the Penang property market over the next three to four years.
The Napic report shows that about 79% of the new houses are affordable and high-end, priced from RM300,000 onwards.
Tan said this was a primary concern as Napic has indicated that the unsold houses in Penang from the completed, under construction and not yet constructed categories totalled 11,540 units.
In late November, the state government declared that Penang has the second-highest number of unsold properties in Malaysia, with 4,683 completed housing units worth RM3.66bil.
Tan said assuming that developers had sold some 30% of the 54,836 houses, there would still be a leftover of 38,385 units.
“In 2020 and 2021, the residential property transactions in Penang were 11,736 and 13,648, respectively.
“Assuming that the annual consumption stays between 11,000 and 13,000 units per annum, it will take between three and 3.5 years to absorb the excess supply, which doesn’t even include the 11,540 unsold units,” Tan said.
He added that if the economy remained challenging with high-interest rates, the time required to clear the oversupply would be much longer.
“This is, of course, assuming that no new projects will be approved.
“If there are more houses on the way, the inventory will grow, making it more difficult to clear the glut,” Tan said.
Tan added, however, that the incoming supply would mitigate the impact of fewer property launches over the next couple of years, ensuring that the market would have sufficient stock and variety for consumption.
Source: TheStar.com.my
