Penang’s government has finally approved the advertising permits and developers’ licences (APDLs) after months of waiting by home builders with projects in the state, reported The Edge.
Given the approval, developers are now inking sales and purchase agreements (SPA) with home buyers and accepting the latter’s cheques, according to Raine & Horne International’s Senior Partner Michael Geh.
Previously, he noticed last year that there was a lengthy delay in the processing of APDLs by the state authorities. Usually developers only had to wait for a month, but the waiting time reached around 18 months.
Nevertheless, Penang’s real estate market is expected to become more vibrant now that the state government has given the green light to the APDLs.
“The [sales] figures will surface in the first two quarters of the year,” said Geh after launching the latest Penang Housing Property Monitor.
Based on the research, the state’s property market was nearly flat, with few price movements across the board, as well as slightly lower deal numbers and overall value during the first nine months of 2016.
“A total of 13,539 properties, including residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural and development land worth RM6.85 billion, were transacted up to the third quarter. For residential properties, there were 9,899 transactions worth RM4 billion,” he noted.
On the other hand, the market for second-hand properties remained stable with prices rising marginally.
In particular, Geh revealed that units costing below RM500,000 accounted for most of the sales in the state during the first six months of last year.
“If we look at the prices of properties transacted in Penang in the first half of 2016, most of them were between RM200,001 and RM500,000 (33 percent), followed by below RM100,000 (23 percent) and between RM100,001 and RM200,000 (20 percent).”
“This shows that the demand for homes priced below RM500,000 remains strong while that for units priced above RM500,000 is expected to dip.”
Looking ahead, Geh believes that the real estate deals in Penang would increase in terms of volume and remain high by overall value, especially if the central bank eases its housing loan rules.
“I am predicting a 5.0 percent increase in residential property transactions in the first quarter of the year. I am expecting Penang to register about RM1.13 billion worth of transactions involving 2,527 units,” he said, adding that there would be good demand for units properties priced below RM350,000 in Q1 2017.
“There are a lot of homes priced RM350,000 and below on the market and many people are applying for bank loans. These are high-rise units on the island and landed properties on the mainland that are located further away from the popular areas like Bertam.”
Other places where such houses are available are Teluk Kumbar, Relau and Tanjung Tokong. But this year’s property hotspots are Iconic City, Batu Kawan and Penang Sentral on the mainland, while popular locations on the island are Batu Maung, Bayan Baru, Persiaran Karpal, Singh/Sungai Pinang and George Town.
Radin Ghazali, Content Writer at PropertyGuru, edited this story. To contact her about this or other stories email radin@propertyguru.com.my
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