this was in Berita Harian today
Berita Harian Online

make it short, before 2010, foreigners can only purchase properties in Malaysia with value of no less than RM250k...now, they've raised that up to RM500k...

reason is, they fear foreigners are over-bidding the locals for lower cost properties...in another word, locals cant buy the property they want becos the foreigners with higher exchange rate than RM is snapping up all properties...

to me, that is utter BS...what i see is plenty of developments here & there...plenty of unsold properties...to say there's a strong competition going on between the locals & foreigners is a load of crap...

say i invested in a property where i feel foreigners or expats would wanna live in for RM300k, and i expect the price to reach at RM400k after completion, making myself handsome amount of returns. now, i cant sell them to foreigners for less than RM500k...foreigners with more than RM500k budget will look for something else...which means i'm royally screwed?

i honestly dun understand why they wanna enforce such rules...already foreigners can only apply up to 80% or 70% loan if not mistaken...why wanna make it more and more difficult for them to buy properties in M'sia? what happened to the 'Malaysia my second home' program? enough already is it?

in KL/Selangor, its probably easy to get houses with value of RM500k and up...what about other states? like Alor Setar? Melaka? certain places in Perak? as i know, some of these more sub-urban areas dun have high property values, but plenty of foreigners prefers the serenity of these places over the hectic city lives..so again, property investors from these states are royally screwed?

in addition, not all foreigners are filthy rich...some of them moved here for a different reason...maybe becos they like malaysia and maybe becos property prices here are a hell lot cheaper than say s'pore & HK or Japan...with this new ruling, wouldn't it deter some of them to invest or choose m'sia as their 2nd home?

what you guys think?

maybe 500k is too high and it should also depends on the general market price of the area.

500k for a property is not much now.
Most of the new launch terrace house is more then 500K in Klang valley near to KLCC or PJ vicinity.

Even a decent condo cost easily cost > 350K

TS major concern was other area than Klang Valley
I'm agree with jarjar6666. Should depend the area market..

It's reasonable if u ask me .

Sorry, but I think government should look after the welfare of the majority, as opposed to a minority of property investors.

I also think most foreigners simply rent properties so I don't know how useful that policy might be to keep price down

This post has been edited by cic.lemur: Jan 15 2010, 09:31 AM

having such ruling, and then they allow certain Spore and OZ companies like Capital Land and Macquarie to buy all over our prime hotels, warehouses, commercial buildings in Klang Valley.

if you know an area expat would live, do you think the developer is so stupid not aware of it and stupidly sell @ 300k?

It's good.

Raise the bar so the expat who don't wish to buy m'sian property above RM500k would RENT one.

But it's nothing serious, expat getting less & less these days.

Go to Mont' Kiara at nite & u'll notice 60% of the condo units, no lights on at all.

I think it is quite fair.

Take a look @ SG. the price has been skyrocket by foreigners that even the local poor-lower medium income young couple cannot afford to buy a small house that is enough to fit their new small family.

500K may seems to limit some foreigners come to here. but Even with that amount, our property are still among the cheapest to buy, which I think the foreign demand for local property are largely not affected.

Certainly it is very unhealthy to have all the expensive good houses sitting near urban area wheres most of the owners are investors. People who want to buy houses ending up in sub urban area because the best one is overprice by investors.

You guys want to see KL/Penang/JB full of empty houses in city center?

This post has been edited by billytong: Jan 15 2010, 10:07 AM

rm500k is very very small sum only.

A good move I would say..

To some people, 500K is a small sum, but for most people its a huge sum..

I would say it is a good news to all the Malaysian.

Investors can demand for a higher price. Local house buyers not need to worry lower properties are snapped by foreigners!

Most important, we ONLY want to attract foreigners (who have "standard") that can afford to buy property >RM 500k to live & invest in Malaysia. Not foreigners who come here to "jump aeroplane" and creat a lot of criminal problems.

RM500k nowsaday to most of the Malaysian is something. But to foreigners are nothing.

Take a look of the following: -

RM 500k = USD 142k; 92k pound sterling; AUD 166k; SD 208k.........

but can the foreigners buy a decent property in their own countries using those currencies amount?

I don't know and can't say if it's a good move or not but I'm quite sure the government is trying to curb those expats working here in MY to purchase low-cost housing meant for Malaysians.

Also, what I mean here by expats / foreigners aren't our maids from Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia or construction Bangladeshi workers but the professional kind.

Having said that, RM500k is not *that* much today - i mean, look around U - places where these expats would wanna stay definitely costs a lot higher.

This post has been edited by tinkerbel: Jan 15 2010, 12:19 PM

I think it is fair.
It is so difficult for us to buy a decent house in a decent area nowadays. The prices are just absurd.

@barista,
I think the government should also have a regulation for keeping house prices within affordability level

Just like property prices in Penang island..

Unless the houses are inherited, otherwise a lot of old houses in developed areas will be abandoned when the owners moved to smaller units or passed away. Who can afford to pay close to a million to be near their parents at where I stay now? Those houses were less than 200K 20 years ago.

@barista,
20 years ago, 200k was equivalent to about a million so there U go! IMHO certain developed areas will retain it's value; as to whether it continues to appreciate - it probably will but most would have reached its point of saturation so if U intend to purchase a piece of property in those areas, don't expect it to give you great capital appreciation.

That's like 9% inflation every year for 20 years, has it been that bad?

@cic.lemur,
Yeah that should be about just right

Hmm..if a foreigner wants to buy house in the area like Pahang, Kedah...i think it is very hard to find a house selling for 500k...

If that is the case, i guess they will opt for a property to rent

developer not stupid...if they are they're not developers...

d'sara perdana & its nearby area is one place worth mentioning...RM300k not expensive, but if you pay RM300 for a 650sq ft studio, is that expensive now? say RM400+ per sq ft? still cheap? developer still stupid? why u only can look at the big figure?

of course, if there are landed double storey 3000sq ft built up gated & guarded areas with RM300k price tag, its darn cheap & i will be the first one to say it should be reserved to us Malaysians only...

i've been living in MSQ in DP for close to a year now, and honestly, locals probably make up 60%...the rest, middle easterns, koreans, japanese, mat salleh...so is it NOT a place expats will choose to live? its' only a stone throw away from mont kiara via penchala link...one side minimum cost RM900k...another side, can get decent one for RM350k...

pls bare in mind, not all foreigners come to m'sia and have a RM50k monthly salary...look at food court at The Gardens...mostly run by foreigners..selling food...these are not filthy rich ppl...

one or two mentioned property prices will sky rocket with the 'invasion' of foreigners snapping up our properties...dont you think with the RM500k minimum ruling the same thing will bound to happen even more so? property developers will now wanna increase the prices so that foreigners can also purchase their properties, and that, will affect us the locals...becos they cant have 2 (well, 3) different prices for locals, bumi & foreigners...its not like buying petrol with MyKad

i simply feel RM500k is a little bit too much...maybe they should consider readjusting to 400k or so...

actually this ruling reminds me of something. if developer is smart and is developing at certain hotspot which can attract foreigners, they would be smart to price close to rm500k. rg. rm380k to rm450k. so that only malaysian can buy and upon VP can sell to foreigners. and with this ruling, a lot of malaysian would be very happy to let go at rm500k to them.
dunno why, savanna and covillea suddenly comes to mind.
i think they are the one who is pricing almost on the spot to 'catch' the expat with this development and this development seems ideal for them too in terms of environment, location, etc.

cheers!

I agree with the government on this.. its so bloody hard now a days to own a property .. even if you are earning rm 4k a month its not enough also to cover your expenses and what more then to buy a property... all the good one's are priced way over 300K to 400K.. if you got a car and education loan to pay off its not enough.. .. The government should restrict the foreigners to rm 500k property only and not more then 20% of the project can be sold to foreigners.. had asked alot of friends in the property line .. they said that alot of the properties are bought by Singaporeans... some buyers are just fresh grad ..use sing money to buy property and then re-sale or rent out to malaysian's.. some even join with their friends there to buy property here .... some join with local here to buy and get low interest from bank then sell back again to Malaysian's... like that cannot loh.. we suffer here loh .. very hard now a days for young couple to get own place less then 250k unless its low cost...

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Added on January 19, 2010, 3:06 pmbtw does any one knows how much is this place http://www.impianaland.com/raintree/ariza.html

This post has been edited by lokideangelus: Jan 19 2010, 03:06 PM