Real estate developers in Sabah is urging the state government to help them tackle the oversupply of completed houses, reported the Borneo Post.
“When the market is bullish, these overhang properties will gradually be absorbed. But the number of overhang units is accumulating in the current market slowdown,” said Sabah Housing and Real Estate Developers Association (SHAREDA) President Chew Sang Hai.
In fact, the proportion of unsold units – defined as those with Occupancy Certificates (OCs) that have been listed for sale for over nine months – has reached 25 percent, mainly consisting of bumiputera units.
Most surplus homes are located in Kota Kinabalu at the west coast of Sabah, as 80 percent of property projects in the state are concentrated in the state capital and nearby places.
As such, SHAREDA is asking Chief Minister Datuk Seri Shafie Apdal to hold a meeting with various industry stakeholders to address this problem.
One of the group’s proposal is for the government to purchase these excess units at below market price and use them for 1Malaysia People’s Housing Programme (PR1MA) or People’s Housing Project (PPR).
Moreover, Chew hopes that the authorities will permit home builders to transfer excess units to a holding company without the need to pay stamp duty so that they can rent out these properties temporarily until they’re sold.
Currently, property developers need to pay a hefty amount of stamp duty and legal fees to offload units to a holding company and then lease them.
Meanwhile, Chew revealed that property investors and home builders in Sabah have postponed their purchases and project launches respectively pending the Pakatan Harapan government’s announcement on their detailed housing policies and rules.
“The new government may roll out new policies. Hence, developers, buyers and investors have adopted a wait-and-see attitude, pending new policies or regulations that may be introduced by the new administration.”
As such, Sabah’s real estate market is temporarily calm with zero new project roll-outs so far since the 14th General Election (GE14) in May, which saw a change in administration in both state and federal levels.
Furthermore, real estate investors typically shun “old stocks” and prefer to purchase during new project launches to take advantage of discounts and freebies, particularly early bird prices, to boost their potential earnings when the units are completed and resold, he added.
Image sourced from Assets.Hospitalityonline
This article was edited by the editorial team of PropertyGuru. To contact them about this or other stories email editorialteam@propertyguru.com.my
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