My close friend, a real estate agent will back to the sales gallery next week when she would have completed the 14-day from her 2nd dose of AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. She has been waiting for this day (reopening of office) to come for months and is raring to go. She said that the developers have also started to discuss on the sales gallery reopening and the required SOPs etc.
Without the sales gallery reopening, nothing much happens even if the unit could be viewed by potential customers online via virtual videos for example. Not many people I know would sign on a RM500,000 property just after viewing a video, no matter how awesome the video was. The closure has to depend on whether the sales person could answer my question or not.
Article in nst.com.my Mah Sing Group Bhd Founder and group managing director Tan Sri Leong Hoy Kum said that the government should expedite the recovery of the property market. This is because the recovery of the property sector will have a significant multiplier effect on more than 140 industries.
He has a few suggestions for the property market recovery and they include reinstating maximum loan tenure to 40 years, referring to gross income rather than net-income for loan applications, higher debt service ratio, up to 100% margin of financing for first property to help the M40 and B40 groups in their property purchase.
He also would like to recommend the government to consider Developer Interest Bearing Scheme for first-time homebuyers too. As for the Home Ownership Campaign (HOC), it should be extended for an additional year. For even more of his recommendations, do read it here: Article in nst.com.my
First-time home buyers also need MORE information, else easily influenced
Whenever I speak to first-time home buyer, I realise that many of them do not have any idea about property investment at all. Thus, they may be easily influenced by experienced sales people and may buy a property which they do not need and may get stuck later when the property is completed. We do not want the situation of too many transactions involving first-time home buyers who were buying without knowing enough.
Conservative is better for first-time home buyers
For the loan application approval, I am someone who prefers the bank to be stringent. Calculation can use gross salary if it makes better sense for some profession such as sales people. However, first-time home buyers should know that they need to buy a property which is within their salary affordability versus over-stretching just because they want to have the ‘perfect’ home. By the way, when their financial capability changes, that perfect home is no longer perfect. Property market recovery may be an opportunity too.
Home is definitely a necessity and the first home is important
Someone without a property will always be financially handicapped because they would have to pay rental forever. Rental keeps going up with inflation too. Someone with a property of their own stops paying for a property 30 years down the road. After that, they can do whatever with the monthly extra money they have. Meanwhile for the ones who rented, they have to ensure their investments from other types of investments could cover the rental easily. Happy understanding.
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