Financial news: Harder to buy a property today or a long time ago?
Why are the older folks complaining that today’s rates are too low for their hard earned savings?
There was a time when depositing RM1 million in the bank as Fixed Deposit will gain the saver 8 percent of interest if not higher and that means this saver could get a monthly interest equivalent to RM6,667 per month. This is the typical salary of a M40 household. In other words, it’s actually possible to take it easy once we have managed to save our first RM1 million. RM6,667 is not a lot of money but certainly enough even for today’s typical expenses per month. I know, it’s much harder to get RM1 million then because the salaries are lower.
Why do some people say that it’s cheaper to get a home loan today versus a long time ago?
Take a look at the chart below. We can see that back in 2007 for example, the home loan rate could have been 5.75 percent or higher. I still remember once upon a time I used to have a rate of 5.5 percent for my home loan.
Meanwhile the typical rates for today would be something like the below:
Easier to buy today or a long time ago?
This is a very hard to answer question. The salary amount then and today is a very different number. The number of home choices then and today is also very different. The banks’ loan approval then and today is also very different. The urban migration we see today meant that growth in bigger cities are faster and some smaller towns may see less demand for properties too. In fact one additional thing which is very different then and today is that today there are online shopping, there are special promotion for airline tickets, there are also all the attractive BUY NOW PAY LATER schemes too.
So, if I can choose just one answer between then and now, it should be harder to buy today due to the many temptations of today. It’s not harder to buy a property today, it’s just harder to allocate funds for property nowadays. This is why more and more people may resort to renting and it’s already prevalent in many advanced countries around the world today. Final question is whether can these people rent if no one has a property to rent to them? Happy deciding.
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