When is the best time to buy a property? My answer is ‘anytime when one is ready with the money, time for research and the willingness to take a long-term view about property investment. How about if someone tells you that the best time to buy a property is NOW? Here’s a view from Reapfield Properties Sdn Bhd group COO Jonathan Lee. His views are in the Article in TheSundaily.my here: Now’s the time to look for properties Lee said that property market is picking up from a low base since last year and now there’s the feel-good factor in the air as the government will be introducing new policies soon. He said to SunBiz in an interview, “Everybody’s looking for bargains. This is the best time to look. We’ve had the lowest transaction volume since 2012 last year. When you come to that point, what’s going to happen is probably up. Based on new policies, systems and restructuring (by the new government), we’ll have a good reset of the entire systemic approach. This is the right time to be investing.”
Not everything is rosy though. He added, “There will be some adjustment period and in the midst of uncertainties, there are lots of opportunities to explore now.” His next view is extremely true. “Property is an inelastic product. You cannot build or cut down a lot of things in a short time. Because of the inelasticity, you will see some effect in certain places but it will not be a major impact to the ecosystem. It will change the way developers plan but we don’t see that as a major impact in the short run.” (Remember, when the prices get too high, it’s not just the buyers who will shy away. Developers would also stop building because the prices are just too high and they know that launches will fail. This is why newer launches are always at the ‘affordable’ category even if this category is a different one for different buyers due to their respective household incomes.)
Lee then pointed out that one of the challenges in the market is “noises.” He said, “A decade ago, Cheras was A price, KLCC was B price and Mont Kiara was C price. There was a fixation of value in certain locations but, today, that has ran a lot, so a property in Cheras, Mont Kiara or Bangsar South could be selling at RM800 psf also. Where is the true value?” (Actually, if we look at the median value, there are definitely still some inkling on the value. It’s like if I ask, ‘If you have RM800,000 where would you buy, is it A, B or C? Assumption of same kind of property, same size and same furnishings. The answer would usually reveal the most popular area because that’s where people perceive as having the highest value for the same price.) He also asked for realtime transaction data so that we can see better trends, supply and demand. he shared that in markets like Singapore and Hong Kong, there is real-time transaction data that can be retrieved from the local agencies. Full article in TheSundaily.my here. Happy investing. Perhaps Lee is right.
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written on 13 Sept 2018
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