when do you think is a good time to buy those older Mont Kiara condos such as Vista Kiara?  Is end of this year a good time?  How much is the market rate per sq ft in Vista Kiara now?

Thanks.

New household lending guidelines in effect in Q3
By Lee Wei LianMarch 23, 2011KUALA LUMPUR, March 23 – Bank Negara is looking to strengthen responsible lending by banks to households via a new set of guidelines that will take effect in the third quarter of this year.

This comes as household debt hit 75.9 per cent of Malaysia’s GDP last year as compared with less than 70 per cent from 2006 to 2008.

Bank Negara said today however that the new requirements are not intended or expected to hamper credit availability or processing time.

“The new guidelines will be in effect the third quarter of this year,” said Bank Negara governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz in a press conference today.

Key requirements in the new guidelines include suitability and affordability assessment, income verification, product disclosure sheets to facilitate informed decision making and a reworking of the compensation of sales and marketing staff to take into account fair dealing conduct.

Zeti stressed that the country’s household debt was being supported by financial assets and those assets are 2.4 times the value of the debt.

Figures provided by Bank Negara showed that “liquid” assets accounted for 64.6 per cent of household financial assets but 30 per cent of those assets comprise EPF savings which are meant to be savings for retirement.

Housing loans accounted for 45 per cent of household debt followed by car financing at 20 per cent, personal loans at 15 per cent and credit cards and purchase of securities, each at 5 per cent.

Asked about the high percentage of debt occupied by cars which are a depreciating asset, Zeti said that the bank does not expect cars to depreciate sharply over the next 5 years and expected improvements in public transport to also help reduce the figure.

The central bank governor also said that there was no risk of the new first home ownership scheme, which provides 100 per cent home financing to those earning less than RM3,000, affecting the loan quality of the banking system as banks would be conducting affordability and credit worthiness assessments.

Bank Negara also said that it will unveil a new financial sector blueprint in June that will enhance the banking sector’s ability to serve the Najib administration’s goal of a high income economy.

Other aims of the new blueprint include enhancing regional financial integration, promoting financial inclusion, strengthening resilience against disruptions to the financial system and broader economy and strengthening Malaysia’s position as an Islamic financial sector.

If there are no buyers, how can property prices continue to go up? It's a matter of supply and demand.

Property prices in good areas are not dependent on people looking to buy their first homes. From my observation at property launches and from asking ppl in the RE industry, most of the buyers are - 1. older, cash rich folks 2. foreigners 3. Malaysians working overseas. Of course, this does not apply in places like Kajang or Klang.

Other than Mont Kiara and KLCC area, there's hardly a glut in properties.

If they buy the "right" property, they can hold "forever". If cannot flip, just rent out lor. You'll be surprised at the demand for places to stay in the right areas.

Nah, other than those 2 places, there's no glut.

Interesting piece on properties in China. Bit difficult to imagine 64 million empty apartments.

China's Ghost Cities

Properties nowadays no longer depended on genuine home buyers.
There are a few categories now

1. Genuine home buyer, buying for own stay.
2. As part of asset allocation, as FD rate is low nowadays, a lot of cash rich people and company, treat it as a place to park their extra money, investment etc.
3. Foreigners.
4. Speculators, flippers.

(1) may be lacking in the market now, but (2) & (3) is the reason that property price holding up which provide the supporting point. Couple with inflation that many people realise will eat into their cash, RE become a few sole route to protect their cash.
Here properties market is a bit strange one.
Properties price seldom plunge like stock price, but totally out of demand, aka you see properties being abandoned, idle, nobody interested, instead of price going down spirally.

whether prices is gonna come down or not, let's look at what's happening around us:
property that i could remember that was launched this year so far:
1. summer suites, sunrise
2. capers, ytl
3. KM1, berjaya
4. the Arc in cyberjaya, andaman
5. mirage by the lake, OSK
6. serin residency
7. fraser's suite
8. the place @ Cyberjaya
9. a bunch of projects on jalan puchong, okr
so far, not even a hint of it slowing down but instead, they are grabbing as if it's the last development on earth!
bubble or not, u decide lor.

Despite the alarm being raised on the amount of debt households are carrying, data indicate it's not a problem for the financial system as much of those loans are back by collateral and the assets of households are more than double their debts.

Malaysian cepat lupa or Human cepat lupa??? it is a known fact that the U.S financial crisis is caused by the housing market, the value of the so call collateral (properties) or assets that backing the loans declined significantly during crisis time. The collaterals were of course valued more than the mortgage loans when the banks decided to lend , the value only dropped sharply when crisis kicked in

I just watched the inside job. Being an investor myself, I do agree we need to be very careful. I don't live in a world of my own and I think it is wise to take precautions. Most will not realize how serious is the problem until reality hits hard.

I'm a real house buyer. I will try to convince you guys to buy a house now. Not from the speculators but from developers themselves. It will surely be min 30k-50k cheaper. From my recent experience, I was kicked out of my rent house after one year rent, just becoz the owner want to make 150k profit thru the subsale. Now I have to find another house in the same area (becoz my kids are studying here) and it cost me RM300 more  . It was like..what the hell??..my rent is now almost like a house monthly installment?
Should I wait for the rent to go down or buy a new house? I don't like to gamble so I just bought myself a new house (which is a little bit further from where I'm staying now) .

Look at the huge quarterly profits announced by property developers - they are making a killing. These guys are experts. A whole bunch of the premier developers focus on one area - cooperate in building up the infrastructure/amenities, make it very attractive, charge premium price.

Try to evaluate this 4 things in the past...which 1 is depreciating???i take it 10 years back...
FOOD for ex: Mee soup rm3.5 n now simply rm4.5 (not those prime areas too).
Clothing for ex: Levis jean rm 80 n now if u dun hv rm 100++ can't even buy it.(Forgive me if i'm wrong coz i'm seldom shopping nowadays)
Transportation ex: intrakota cost??? n now rapidkl cost??? U calculate it...not even dare to mention taxis fare...

#11 Czech Republic
Annual Change: Down 3.0%
#10 Spain
Annual Change: Down 3.5%
#9 Japan
Annual Change: Down 3.6%
#8 Portugal
Annual Change: Down 4.0%
#7 United States
Annual Change: Down 4.1%
#6 Greece
Annual Change: Down 6.0%
#5 Dubai, UAE
Annual Change: Down 6.1%
#4 Croatia
Annual Change: Down 7.2%
#3 Ukraine
Annual Change: Down 7.8%
#2 Lithuania
Annual Change: Down 10.1%
#1 Ireland
Annual Change: Down 10.8%

But on the basis of capital appreciation, established & mature areas like TTDI, Bandar Utama, Bangsar, etc will always hold their prices.

This statement is flaw. They maybe able hold their price (capital guaranteed) but not capital appreciate

actually many people expect house price to drop, my question are :-
1) how much is the degree that they expected? drop 10% fr current mkt price? 20%, 30%, 50%, or below than developer's price?
2) how much drop would make them buying their dream house?
3) Would they buy even the house price drop 50% and they still can't "really" afford to buy?
4) would they buy when the price has dropped to the level of afford-ability (even though drop 10% only)?
5) Totally not buying regardless of any price drop

IMO, I feel sometime is too general to discuss whether property price will drop or not, because somehow you will be right one day, is just when?

May be the above topic would be more realistic to be discussed further on...

hahaha.
my aunt is subsale.
original price is rm30k!
i think that was about 30 to 40 years ago lah.

PS: say current value at rm800k
that's rm740k profit over say 40 years.
that still works out to >30% compounded annual return.

What makes u think the units will be left empty while the owner "struggles" with loans, fees etc? 

How come those hoping for a price drop conveniently left out the fact that properties in the right location:
I) can be rented out at a rate that can easily cover the loan installments and other miscellaneous expenses
II) have demand from tenants that outstrips supply
In fact..... in some places, units available for sale are few, and the demand more,  despite the increse in prices recently.
But I do agree with the highlighted part.
Btw have those hoping for a price drop formed a Support Club or something. Noticed a few forumers eagerly agreeing with anything posted against property price increases/evil speculators without posting opinions of their own 

i believe that resources (savings) are limited. if indeed what some analysts said that 80% are genuine buyers （buying for own stay) over the past two years.

This means the buyer pool shrank already (genuine buyers won't buy 10 or 20 units for own stay), because genuine buyers usually buy and stop looking for at least 5 years before they think of upgrading etc some even stick to the house for >10 years. So, if 80% genuine buyers over the past 2-3 years, now they are less buyers in the market, make sense right? unless income is growing at the pace of property prices, less buyers will enter into this so called buyers pool.

If uncles aunties buying for their kids (help pay the downpayment etc), how many kids they have? and how much savings have already gone into the property market over the past two years? so buying/investing power has deteriorates also rite? 

The purpose of a debate is to dissect an issue...... not talk about "generalities".

What happens when everybody hedges their extra cash in props.   Alot of good that will do.