Many weeks ago, someone asked me what’s the better investment when it comes to real estate. Is it property or is it land? In fact, for properties, what is the type which is best? Residential or commercial? I told her that there is no comparison in my personal opinion. Land is certainly the best as there is really no benchmark as to how high it could suddenly go.
I picked just one slide for this first article about the property market in Malaysia. For an overview, we just need to know two things when it comes to property market dynamics yeah. When times are not so positive for the property market, people tend to hold back their purchases. That’s why we will see total transactions falling tremendously. Just take a look at the years during Covid-19. No one could do anything…
Two weeks ago, I was asked again about the state of the property market. As usual, if it’s someone I do not really want to spend my time in explaining, I just say I have no idea but I will definitely be looking at the property market for my next property. The person said, “but there’s an oversupply!” I just smiled and said, it’s okay. It’s just about managing the risk and to buy after sufficient due diligence. I do not think the person agreed but WHO CARES? Haha.
I was invited by ERA to speak in Singapore recently and I enjoyed the session tremendously. I received many good questions and the session which was supposed to be an hour extended to an hour and 30 minutes or more maybe. The average age of all those who came? Slightly above my age. 🙂
If I am given a lower home loan rate, I will be very happy because it will lower the monthly repayments for me. What about you? Would you be happy as well? I am sure you would. However, if the question is would I buy another property because the rates are now lower, I am not so sure. Perhaps I would increase my viewing activities so that I could eventually identify a good property to buy.
An overweight person is not healthy, of course. Better be balanced when it comes to health. So, please do not be overweight like me. I will do best to reduce it back to 76kg. However, when we speak about investments and we look at allocating our limited resources, we want to be ‘overweight’ on some sectors which has a higher potential for higher returns and be underweight for investments which has a smaller potential for higher returns.
There are always news saying that the next generation may not be able to afford their own property. Maybe one reason is also because people are getting married later, so their partner could not help in the mortgage payment until much later. I was fortunate as my wife was working when we bought our first property together.
If you are an owner of a strata high-rise unit and you have owned the same unit for the past 30 years or so, you may already be earning a pretty decent return on investment from your rental since the price you paid for 30 years ago is by far lower than the rental you will obtain today. So, do you want to sell your unit? Maybe not.
Property prices don’t necessarily go up just because the market is moving or seems to be getting better. If we bought at a high price because of a great sales pitch by an attractive sales person, someone offered us a big discount, or an area which is the rage, that doesn’t guarantee a price increase.
What’s your perfect property? One which is very affordable and meets all that you want plus needs? Perhaps just a SOHO unit with security and is a Transit Oriented Development (TOD) which you can go to the ground floor and walk to the MRT station directly?
If you are a working professional and you do NOT believe in property investment, perhaps you are the reason why many people also believe the same. Sorry to add that when we put property investment towards the last thing we invest in, then we must make sure all our other non-property investments would give us a return which will be able to cover what we will miss without having a property to our name when the time our income stops arrive.
For many years, every time anyone told me that their salary is not enough or that their employer underpaid them, I will ask them to think of ways to get a second income or to get another job which could pay them better. Most of the time, the answer is that they are too busy or that they could not find another job which could pay them higher plus doing the same work as what they do today.