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Kuala Lumpur, 09 May 2011, Monday — Malaysia’s latest online property portal, HomeGuru.com.my has conducted the inaugural Property Sentiment Survey for Q1 2011, where the thoughts and opinions of Malaysian property buyers have been gathered, analysed and tabulated in this unique survey.
Conducted with the key objectives to accurately capture consumer sentiment, understand property buying intentions and the impact of government measures, CEO and co-founder of HomeGuru, Steve Melhuish shared that the survey aims to reveal consumer sentiment that may affect future property decisions and to allow better perspective on the Malaysian property market.
“What we’re trying to do here is to create more transparency in the property market. We’d like to help Malaysian buyers have access to specific and accurate information so they can make efficient and informed decisions regarding property,” said Steve.
HomeGuru commissioned and directed a research team to gather essential, relevant data and to reach out to Malaysians living in all corners of the country; from urban zones like the Klang Valley, Penang and Johor all the way to quieter, more peaceful regions like East Peninsular Malaysia and East Malaysia.
Nearly 2,000 people, aged between 21 and 69 with a monthly household income of not less than RM2,500, provided honest answers to crucial questions on fundamental topics such as Malaysian property prices, the influence of government measures related to property purchase as well as buying intentions and reasons.
This very first HomeGuru Property Sentiment survey, which was conducted online from 31 March to 18 April 2011, revealed a number of findings with regards to the minds of Malaysian property buyers.
The overall consumer property sentiment index for the HomeGuru survey was set on a scale of 1 to 5. Melhuish revealed that the Malaysian property sentiment index was 2.4, which represents a high negative number that is considered to be close to positive. In essence, the respondents’ overall view of the property in Malaysia is close to neutral and they probably expect prices to become more affordable over time.
However, when it comes to individual categories related to property prices, Steve shared that two thirds of the survey respondents feel that property in Malaysia is too expensive. “This is true particularly for bungalows. 81% of survey respondents felt bungalows were too expensive.” He divulged that buyers felt differently about condos.
“Respondents were less aggressive regarding expense for condos. 41% felt that condos were actually quite reasonably priced.”
Steve also revealed that 72% of survey respondents feel that property prices will increase over the next 6 months despite the government’s cooling measures. “Last year we saw about a 25% increase in property prices and we’re expecting around a 15% increase this year. The view is that the government needs to introduce additional cooling measures which will have a big impact on moderating prices.”
Survey results decisively pointed to this opinion, as nearly three quarters or 69% of respondents believe the government is not doing enough to keep property prices affordable in Malaysia. This has led to 60% of the respondents adopting a ‘wait and see’ approach which means they will neither upgrade nor downgrade their current
property status.
However, Steve said that despite expectancy that prices will go up, there is strong confidence in the Malaysian property market. “People think that property is too expensive but survey participants said they expect transactions to grow and prices to carry on going up which means there is a strong confidence in the property market.”
This conclusion was based on questions regarding buying intentions. 63% believe property is the most solid and safe investment, another 63% believe there is potential profit to be made from capital appreciation while 54% see investing in property as a solid retirement plan. “This shows that the majority of Malaysians still perceive investing in bricks and mortar as the most secure form of investment there is,” explained Steve.
An overwhelming number of survey respondents, or 81% to be exact, shared that they were planning to purchase property not too far in the future. “Yes the prices are going up and people don’t like it but they are still thinking of buying over the next 12 months. To me, this means that the market is still very strong and there is a bit of a ‘herd mentality’ meaning that if people feel that if they don’t join everyone else and buy property, they’re going to miss out,” shared Steve.
Steve also disclosed that 45% of survey participants were thinking of buying property outside the country and apartments and condos came out tops as the most popular type of property among buyers. 55% had their heart set on becoming apartment or condo owners, 43% were intent on owning terrace houses while 32% were keen to purchase commercial property. Based on the increased interest in commercial property, Steve believes a new trend is possibly emerging in the Malaysian property market. “As residential property prices peak, savvy investors are starting to look for alternatives which explains the heightened focus on commercial property.”
Steve said that when it comes to purchasing property, decision makers turned out to be ‘both myself and my spouse’ according to 56% of survey respondents. “It’s no surprise that price beat location by a nose for the most critical deciding factor for buying. 44% of respondents would buy a home or commercial property based on how much they’d have to deplete their bank accounts”. He added that 41% felt location trumped all other deciding factors and capital appreciation lagged behind as a distant third factor with only 20% believing that it was the most important reason to purchase property.
Malaysian property portal, HomeGuru.com.my is a joint venture between All Property Media Pte.Ltd. Singapore and RedBerry Malaysia. Since going live in January this year, HomeGuru has listed more than 50,000 property listings and registered a base of more than 5,000 agents. The portal provides house hunters and property buyers an effective and wide-reaching platform to identify available properties for purchase, sale, rental or as an investment. The portal also provides multimedia-rich content that greatly assists the end user with information on property and home-related products, services, news, advice, guides, tools and an ever expanding Malaysian property database.
AllProperty Media Pte Ltd
Ms. Winnie Khoo, Chief Marketing Officer
Tel: +65 6238 5971
Email: winnie@allproperty.com.sg
About AllProperty Media Pte Ltd:
AllProperty Media Pte Ltd is Asia’s leading property portal group with a presence in seven countries (directly and via partners). Almost 4 million users view 48 million property pages on the Company’s websites across South East Asia. The Company’s revenues tripled in 2010, traffic doubled and agent subscriptions grew 85%.
AllProperty Media was founded in 2006 by two successful entrepreneurs in Singapore and is best known for runningwww.PropertyGuru.com.sg, Singapore’s leading property site (sources: Hitwise, Alexa and Google). It also runswww.CommercialGuru.com.sg; Singapore’s only dedicated commercial and industrial property portal, as well aswww.LoanGuru.com.sg, an online mortgage brokerage with access to over 300 mortgage deals from 23 major local and international banks.
The Company has picked up a number of industry and government awards over the last 3 years including “CNBC World’s Best Property Portal 2009”, “Google Singapore Top 10 Fastest Rising Search Term 2009”, Singapore IT Federation (SITF) award for “Best E-Enterprise Company 2010”, Singapore Venture Capital & Private Equity Association (SVCA) award for “Best Performing VC Backed Company 2010” and voted “Top Digital Media of the Year 2010” by Marketing Magazine.
For 2011, the company has set its sights on expanding into neighbouring countries. It has entered into a joint venture with Redberry, one of Malaysia’s top media companies, to accelerate its expansion into Malaysia and launchedHomeGuru.com.my, a website to help users find available properties for sale and rent in Malaysia. It has also acquired FullHouse Media Sdn Bhd, owners of leading North Malaysian property portal, FullHouse.com.my and Rumah.com, Indonesia's top property website, with over 500,000 visitors viewing eight million impressions every month.
AllProperty Media is now operating across 7 countries (Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, India, Australia and Macau) via new operations, acquisitions and strategic partnerships.
Asia’s Leading Property Portal Group includes:
www.PropertyGuru.com.sg is used by over 1.9 million consumers who view 29 million pages, generating approximately 150,000 leads for advertisers every month. The site provides real-time access to multi-media rich content covering property and home-related products, services, news, advice, guides, tools and the largest online property database in Singapore and works closely with prominent real estate developers, housing agents and home-related firms in Singapore and overseas.
www.CommercialGuru.com.sg was launched in August 2010 and is used by 140,000 business users browsing 1.6 million pages and generating approximately 50,000 leads for advertisers every month. It is Singapore’s only independent, dedicated commercial and industrial property portal.
www.LoanGuru.com.sg was launched in January 2010 as an independent online mortgage brokerage providing real-time access to over 300 mortgage packages from 23 major local and international banks. It processes approximately $40 million of mortgage applications monthly.
www.HomeGuru.com.my is a Malaysian property portal set up as part of a joint venture between All Property Media Pte Ltd and Malaysia’s RedBerry. It provides consumers a platform to identify available properties for purchase, sale, rental or investment and a direct channel to search for and contact agents. Designed with the end-user in mind, it features real-time access to multi-media rich content, covering property and home-related products, services, news, advice, guides, tools and a rapidly growing online property database in Malaysia. It works closely with prominent real estate developers, housing agents and home-related firms in Malaysia and overseas.
www.Rumah.com was founded in 2007 and is Indonesia's top property website with approximately 500,000 visitors viewing 8 million page views every month. Over 120,000 properties for sale and rent in Indonesia and the website have a database of 11,000 opted-in members. Rumah.com is an online media campaign that provides the ideal search experience for all types of property: residential, commercial and industrial. Rumah.com allows sellers and renters to place on its site property advertisements which can be easily viewed by prospective buyers, who can search for property based on location and / or price.
For recent news, please visit www.propertyguru.com.sg/customer-service/press-releases. For more information, visitwww.PropertyGuru.com.sg, www.CommercialGuru.com.sg, www.LoanGuru.com.sg, www.HomeGuru.com.my,www.FullHouse.com.my or www.Rumah.com.