question a bit vague...but what do you guys think is the minimum/optimum stable salary to be earning in a month before u can consider to buy a house via installment.

lets say the house is at 400-500k range

Too general question. I would say at least 5k salary per month.

Get affordable housing and you can start earlier (3k salary can qualify already)

Too generic , however a quick check from the loan calculator shall be as following for 30 years tenure 👇



Rule of thumb, the home loan instalment should be cap at 1/3 of your monthly salary .

Hence 1/3 = RM 2245, your monthly salary should be RM 6735.

6735 nett also means 8.1k salary.. If follow this rule of thumbs how many ppl can afford property

To me, about 8-10k gross income / mth maybe.

Use House price =< 3 years gross salary.

Based on your logic, 10K per month (gross) earner should just buy max prop price of 360K?

It’s logic and not hard rule, one can earn 10K but can’t even afford 300K property due to overcommitment but another. It’s own responsibility when committing to long term loan.

There always other options :-

1) Go for unit below 300k according to affordability first, slowly upgrade to your dream house as the salary increases over time.

2) Use joint name & joint loan for the property purchase with your life partner/spouse/family

3) Go for longer loan tenure, drag as maximum as possible to lessen the monthly commitment

The main hindrance will be the upfront 10% down payment. Many will have missed out the 5% additional for the SPA, MOT & Loan Agreement. Total 15% upfront cash to be ready.

This post has been edited by nihility: Mar 1 2022, 06:17 AM

deleted. double posted

This post has been edited by nihility: Mar 1 2022, 05:58 AM

Generally, 5k should be able to start if you have no other areas of legal debt repayments (PTPTN, PL, CC, HP)

Then add another 10% of the monthly repayment to pay for fixed maintenance and that is the total fix monthly commitment.

If you have cash savings in FDs, then pay more upfront and borrow less. That will reduce monthly repayment. Some may advise to invest savings in other areas to generate better returns, but that is up to individual.

Avoid taking out from epf at current interest rate.

Bear in mind that bank is in business of lending money and they can also auction off the property if borrower default.

Borrowing is not always bad. Is just wherther you make the correct decision.

On the assumption you need the property for whatever reasons other than to collect rent, a 500k property is nice to have but can you be satisfied with a 300k property ?

This post has been edited by mini orchard: Mar 1 2022, 09:11 AM

Assuming a condo with 35 years installment when interest back to normal

Instalment 1830
Maintenance/utilities 400

Total 2200

Net salary must be 3 times more. So 6600 nett or 8000 gross.

I bought my 1st subsale condo, priced at RM450k, with monthly gross salary of RM3.7K. That was back in 2013.

Yes if don't want to be slave to the banks.

But I believed your salary have also increased by at least 1k as of today.

How was your life after the purchase?

You dont have to be a slave to the bank if you plan right.

Either rent or buy, if not staying with pama.

Lack of context from TS....
didnt mentioned anything abt his current installment and cash in hand

btw TS didnt reply in any of the post..

I think it must have been difficult. Because assuming he paid 50k dp, his 400k loan of 30 years tenure would be about RM1.9k monthly. At 3.7k gross or 3.3k nett, he wouldn't be able to save much, probably living with family, no car loans, no medical insurance, and no allowance for his family.


Not many. Hence why many have joint names these days. And those who manage to with lesser salary, means they paid a higher down payment, have other sources of income (non-declared type ) or with family money. It is really not uncommon these days that youngsters have their family to finance their purchases these days.

I took a 100k loan in 2005 for a 265k condo, and I was earning just above RM3k then. I was fortunate to have some success with my investments since I started working in year 1992 and with about 50k assisted by family. At about RM950 installment per month, I really could not do much, could save but not much, and I was living with my family.

Have since paid back my mum the money.

no current installment/cash in hand, im still a first year uni student lol
just curious and wanted to know about how much commitment it usually takes to finance a house, so that next time when come out working life wont be so clueless and susah payah.

Very broadly speaking, to calculate conservatively:

Keep home loan instalment amount less than 1/3 of your gross salary, and keep total debts (including PTPTN, credit card, car etc) less than 50% of gross salary.

Minimise loan tenure and loan margin to reduce total interest paid to bank, while maintaining the debt ratio above.

A minimum 10% cash on hand is required (some new launches "waive" this by giving discount/rebate, but mind you that the high loan margin means long term interest payment can easily cost you more than that 10% in cash), especially for subsale homes.

However, bear in mind lifestyle costs also, and maintenance of home (electricity, repairs, maintenance fees, quit rent + assessment fees etc.).

There's a reason why people always push RUMAWIP/RSKU as first house purchase, because of the low upfront costs and maintenance, given Malaysia's low median salary. First homes are also rarely going to be your lifetime/final home (as job and lifestyle may cause you to move or require smaller/bigger space), so don't be too ambitious.

take property price 500k, installment + misc cost (tax, maintenance, electric water etc). There is a commitment of rm2500 monthly. so 5k salary should be ok provided u are thrifty enough (no car no children). i would suggest, buy where you invest, rent where u stay... so u will look for best suit property than can rent out/sell out instead of overspend on own stay home... from the rental income can enable for to buy more houses in future...

This post has been edited by Sakurako: Mar 1 2022, 01:03 PM

Good to get yourself ready, but meantime need to get yourself a good job/ career... often a career enable you a decent living but not luxury house, so do your own strategy. a tips: best don't buy a car once graduate unless necessary, if car is a must then buy the entry level car not vios lah, civic lah etc. u will understand once u have worked for 5 to 10 years later

with 2k house loan
I would say 6k nett salary with no other loans on hand

Bank loan guidelines are based on everything maximum.

If margin of financing is like 70%, shorter loan tenure and type of property, a lower salary threshold is not an issue. The bank will weigh the risk of % recovery b4 approving.

If borrower leaves all to the bank to take risk, chances of rejection is high.

That why some forumers mentioned they are able to get a loan with a lower salary.

Go the Economy Faculty within your university, check if the Economy Faculty of your university is offering any Personal Finance Elective Course, enroll into that class. They will give you the real process of how to do purchase your house from location selection & financing + things to take into considerations.

Prior to Covid, The Edge Property regularly conduct free seminars for public on many topics. All speakers are industry experts in their own rights.

Have lucky draw .... once was a free Axia, free makan in hotels and souvenirs .... past property magazines etc.

Now all zoom.... sad. Missed those days.

i bought undercon house with 570k loan, salary at 6.2k gross.

married with 1 kid, very hard to survive paying both rental & progressive interest,

Now new job 8k salary, more comfortable,

so i say 8k gross if u have family, 6k gross if single

This post has been edited by cruelfacex: Mar 1 2022, 05:26 PM

How long to reach 8k salary ?

Honestly, if you have 8k then, would you buy that property or a 'better' property ? Maybe bigger build-up ? Better view ? Higher floor ? Corner unit ? Or another location ?

This post has been edited by mini orchard: Mar 1 2022, 06:11 PM

just want to point out that while malaysian property generally remains out of reach for the low-mid class, rental rates are dirt cheap. makes far more sense to rent nowadays. go buy overseas if really want some brick and mortar in the portfolio...

So true. You can rent nicer condos at lower middle level rental.

Agree to this. Its basically 1/3 rule of thumb like the other forumer mentioned in previous posts

This post has been edited by hustlerism: Mar 1 2022, 07:54 PM

I do agree with 1/3 the nett salary for house mortgage. This is for comfortability in money spending. But honestly, how many percentage of people do follow that standard?

I myself will make it gross instead while ensuring that I do need to keep myself in check on not to purchase unnecessary stuff. And in 2-3 years time to achieve that nett salary instead, must achieve that goal. My rule of thumb is not perfect but to each their own

took about 1 year, decided to jump company for better salary as i cant cope with current salary, if i had 8k salary at that time maybe i bought type C 1300sqft(4bedroom) instead of type B 1000sqft (3 bedroom). Price difference is about 100k.

if i bought the bigger unit then maybe i still cannot survive with 8k.

Higher salary higher commitments.

Its a rat race.

Exactly.

Then have to work harder to reach 10k.

Is normal buyers decision because we cannot always afford to sell and buy again like a 10k asset and the next capital commitment will be higher and family expenses also increase.

This post has been edited by mini orchard: Mar 1 2022, 08:38 PM

Not everyone can buy properties overseas. And is not something that is listed in ebay ... click buy and charge to CC.

Dont have to compare overseas. If one is in JB, to buy a property in Penang is not simple.

If people stop buying or just rent only, how do one intend to liquidated the property even if is overseas. One cannot hug it to grave.

People buy for various reasons. High price and cheap rent should not be the reasons people stop buying as long the purchase is not a burden but manageable and the reason to buy is because of personal reasons rather than not to buy because rent is cheaper.

If every decision in life is financial, nobody would go for holidays. Everyone will stay home and watch Utube and eat popcorn.

This post has been edited by mini orchard: Mar 2 2022, 07:37 AM

If to buy for investment and rent out immediately.
For exact 2K loan, i would say 5K probably is good also.
Do take income tax deduction into account.

Buying New house (House/condo to be build) is more tricky, where we pay installment incrementally and getting nothing in return for 2-3 years.
Then you need to reserve a bit la

This post has been edited by taitianhin: Mar 1 2022, 10:05 PM

bought my first property when my basic salary was RM1.6k.
installment was RM688 monthly if i remember correctly.
the huge downpayment was combination of own saving plus soft loan from family.
super frugal. driving a motorcycle and property close to completion. immediately post completion move in saved on rental and also lease out the rooms.

For the 1st house, normally ppl will buy sub-sale ready to move in. If buy new unit, the monthly rental + loan servicing concurrently will suffocate the young buyer.

Generally people nowadays don’t want subsale because need to fork out 15% of prop price upfront. The old way is of course to use epf to cover this cash or deal with seller to mark up but that assumes your property will appreciate or generate cash flow more than epf or loan rate. Looking at the current property market yield don’t think that’s been the case for awhile now..

Since you are so young, firstly study hard to get good job.
Then, start to save money by getting scholarship or part time job (on assumption your study is not affected).
Once you got your job, work hard to climb up the corporate ladder while you can start to find properties you liked.

Nevertheless, you can learn about finance yourself. You can start to learn about finance as early as possible.
Fixed deposit, stock, mutual funds, FOREX (not advisable as the risk is high), property , gold, futures (higher level), NFT, bitcoin , and etc.

This post has been edited by godwin921: Mar 2 2022, 11:43 AM

[quote=McMatt,Mar 1 2022, 11:01 AM]
I think it must have been difficult. Because assuming he paid 50k dp, his 400k loan of 30 years tenure would be about RM1.9k monthly. At 3.7k gross or 3.3k nett, he wouldn't be able to save much, probably living with family, no car loans, no medical insurance, and no allowance for his family.


Well, depends how you define difficulty. I think the loan repayment was RM2.2K then, with monthly maintenance of RM280/month. The first 1 year was quite tough, coz I rented to a family, but didn't get any rental for at least 4 months coz so hard to kick them out. Managed to kick them out and have rented out my condo since. Good paymaster until now, thank goodness.

So in a while now, the rental can cover a bit of my loan repayment, especially during these tough times. My income has increased tremendously so I guess, the difficult times have passed.

Indeed, if it was meant for investment and with getting rental returns from it to offset the repayments. But for the person who is buying for self stay, that would be so difficult that he would not have sufficient money for living decently. Which was what I thought it would be based on TS question and title.

I was lucky that I managed to rent it out. Initially was thinking of own stay but ended up renting a small room for my own and rented out my place. I was lucky I didn’t have to support my family first so that was a plus point. But yea, To each of its own. Don’t rush into buying property if you are not ready. But there will always be no best time to do so.

Depends if you're buying it for own stay or investment.
Perhaps keep it within 30 to 40% of your net income.

Optimum DSR is about 20% of income and >30% is considered stretched.

This post has been edited by icemanfx: Mar 3 2022, 09:50 AM