Care to share your real experience back in 2005?

Timing is a valid concern.............for speculators.......if you r buying props with solid fundamentals then timing is never the primary concern....

After the 1997 crisis, the bank & companies in bolehland have tighten their screw, wish u happy waiting for doomsday if its true, the profit & opportunity is all yours

Gee... found someone who shares your contrarian view if he is right & signal triggers, i gonna buy shorts etf till then

http://www.fairfieldweekly.com/article.cfm?aid=16014

Although usa govt offering unlimited support to mortgage giants Fannie Mae (FNM) and Freddie Mac (FRE). the banks r doing a great job restricting lending & not kow tow to obama

http://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street...os-boss-2009-12

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Inves...ot-lending.aspx

Since rpgt issue settle, this parties should be glad, 'The number of foreigners attending property forums and seminars. These potential buyers were looking to either purchase properties for investment or rental purposes', hmm... that's why i can't buy since they make prices going up

http://www.starproperty.my/PropertyGuide/Legal/1156/0/0

Thanx for sharing! irregardless of positive or negative views, have fun

[QUOTE]

Don't take life so seriously... You'll never live through it

Hi

After reading all the learned comments, i think its ok to buy if you intend to stay....
if you like the location, like the desgn,within yr budget, then go for it!!!!

for speculation??? maybe hold on abit yes?

I like the discussion in this thread. You guys given information, little by little add up to be very powerful one. I think "Onemorething" has a very good view beside from everyone else common view.

I can't say who is right who is wrong cause in the end, everyone will be right. Its just time will tell.

From my experience from playing stock(not very looonnngg exp), when everyone(including ah du & ah kau) thinks the stock market price will rise, rise & rise..... then its time to becareful. Same goes for the current property market, where everyone "generally", judging from this thread, does think that the only way for it is "UP".

I also agree that, maybe not all property price will be down, even if the worst case happen like what "onemorething" said, those area that shot up a lot on speculation will eventually suffer the most.

Another point I like to add is, no one will know what will happen next. Just like the share market, the big crash does not come when everyone realize it. This usually happen at the time when everyone is chasing high and higher...even when it(the crash) started, the people still very optimistic about it, otherwise, there will be no one get involved. Same goes in this property scene too.

But if you are not buying to flip or expect short term return, property is always the best investment over the long run.

Beware, current low interest really makes everyone "afford" to buy property, even salary as low as 5-6k per month could by nearly half million home. We are happy that we can bend the bank wrist now and ask for reduction of loan interest amount to base on BLR-minus package. I am sure they can bite back in future with high BLR rate....how? I don't know. I leave it to you to complete the rest of the imaginary...

so thread carefully in this stormy market.

Somehow I am expecting the price of property is going to dip 10-20% in the coming year. Reasons?

1. Housing Bubble is starting to form in the asia pacific including Malaysia. World Bank has written a report warning the consequences including Malaysia.
China Premier is 'concerned' about the property bubble as well, so is the minister of finance of Japan. (Malaysia no news )

2. Since there is an asset bubble, inflation kicks in, recently we have seen oil is moving up to USD 80 per barrel, Palm Oil is hitting record 2,800 per ton and many others (guna naik 20 sen?)

3. Interest rates is one of the lowest in the world right now, including Malaysia. There is no way to go but up, and also due to the inflationary pressure. Bernake and China vice-Premier has signal that interest rate cannot be sustained at all time low. So interest rate hike is a big possibility in 2010. Already the credit spread in US is at 2.1/3 %, the largest spread since 2007.

4. Americans is already borrowing nearly 100% GDP, Japan is also borrowing 225% GDP, Malaysia is about 30% GDP, to be able to afford payments the USD and Japan Yen need to be lowered to be able to afford the interest payments. Therefore we are seign the weakening of the USD and money are going into Gold, temporary. If USD and Yen drops significantly, then malaysia economic growth will stall, and they will need to weaken the currency as well. All these points to inflationary pressure.

4. Comparing rental yields, currently now the calculated yields for property is extremely low (3%-4%), if interest rate rise, the yield will have to follow either rental have to rise or property drop. Either that all those who have heavy repayment might not be able to service their loans once interest rate hike and have to sell at discount.

5. Now the property market is like gold mine, with prices jumping 20%-30% per annum, which is not sustainable. How many employees in KL can afford half million houses and condo? How many condo's can you rent for 2k-3k per month, most probably only foreigners can afford to do so.

Well that is my view above, not necessary true.

I believe 2010 will be a revealing year providing us with indicators of what is in store for the next decade in which one major shift will be a loss in love for RE. Residential & Commercial.

Like I mentioned, anyone with over 40% of their net worth in this one investement is at high risk.

If you want to look to where things are going, you dont have to look to far past the boomer generation which is, begining this year, starting to retire.

It will be Boomers who will most likely kick off the downturn to continue further down in the US-UK-EURO and spark big bubble CAN AUS and a stop to the re-inflated bubbles in the ROW including ASEAN & ASIA.

Boomers are now looking closely of what they have left to retire on and 7/10 dont have enough money outside their RE to last 2 years into it.

Boomers will be faced with a simple conclusion to downsize and once the first phase occurs RE will tank. Compounded by interest rate increases, job losses, pay cuts and higher taxes....it wont stop!

What else will happen is boomer parents which are not nearly as well off as people think they are, have to be taken care of by their boomer children and this means selling the grandparents home at the worst time followed by the Gen Y Xers who are looking to keep their 0/40 homes from being foreclosed by the banks.

This is the new trend facing RE and it doesnt take much to understand it.

Foreclosures and inventory will be massive, shadow inventories so high that banks cannot hide them anymore. This crash crashes everything in it's wake and no bottom can really be found for likely a decade as property has to come back to an affordable level and to a time where your home was not an investment but where you lived.

For those of us dependant on the consumer for our products and exports, get ready as the decade of thrift is upon us and Consumer GDP heavy countries who dont produce anything are in big trouble.

China goods will be to expensive for domestic consumption so count them in the bubble turn bust for Asia.

Those with rental income properties, you know what happens to rental income with home values drop, take profits on re-inflated homes propped up by a false ecomony and get ready for REAL OPPORTUNITIES which will come, some pretty unobvious but with nice yields.

Here's a very good recent article for you to view.

Read US home sales plummet, personal bankruptcies soar
By Tom Eley
6 January 2010

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/hous-j06.shtml

Foreclosures continue to increase. In 2008, more than 1.7 million mortgages fell to foreclosure or similar actions. In 2009, the number swelled to 2 million, and in 2010, the figure is expected to increase to 2.4 million, according to Moody’s Economy.com.

The looming glut of new foreclosed homes will drive down home values by as much 10 percent next year, bringing to 40 percent the four-year drop-off, the New York Times reports. This will swell the ranks of “under water” homeowners—those who owe more on their mortgage than their home’s market worth. Moody’s estimates that one third of all US homeowners, 16 million in all, find themselves in this predicament. The abandonment of homes in negative equity is now a leading cause of foreclosures.

---

Added on January 8, 2010, 5:00 pmI don't know how much clear it gets than this:

By Scott Lanman and Craig Torres
Jan. 7 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. regulators including the Federal
Reserve warned banks to guard against possible losses from an
end to low interest rates and reduce exposure or raise capital
if needed.

“In the current environment of historically low short-term
interest rates, it is important for institutions to have robust
processes for measuring and, where necessary, mitigating their
exposure to potential increases in interest rates,” the Federal
Financial Institutions Examination Council, which includes the
Fed, Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and other agencies, said in
a statement today.

Let me point out a few things.

1. We have never seen a crash and rebound in US stock market history like what we have just experienced, except once. That "once" was 1929/1930. What followed next was a grueling grind - not a crash, but a grind that never ended, and in which the market lost more than 80% of it's value. Those who argue "the bigger the dive the bigger the bounce" forget that the only true comparison against what we have just seen was in fact the prelude to a grinding 90%+ overall decline.

2. If you believe in "long wave" cycles - that is, Kondratieff cycles, we have precisely followed the several-hundred-year long pattern though its latest incarnation, with the 1982-2000ish period being "Autumn." Winter follows fall. These cycles seem to happen mostly because all (or essentially all) of the people who lived through the last cycle's horrors are dead. Unless we have found a way to break a cycle that has endured far longer than our nation, we're right where we should be - which incidentally aligns with what happened in 1929/30 as well. This means that while there may be ups and downs we have not bottomed - not by a long shot - no matter what people tell you.

3. Interest rates can only go up from zero. That should be obvious. Rising rates are not positive for equities and multiple expansion.

4. The Financials are getting a tremendous bid the last few days, presumably on the premise that "employment is at least somewhat stabilizing." With zero short rates and a steep yield curve, this means they make a lot of money. But rates cannot stay where they are if in fact the economy is recovering, and if the long end rises it will choke off housing.

5. At the same time people are rotating into a sector The Fed and regulators just said will be forced to constrain its profits people are fleeing the stocks (tech) that have been on a tear. This is exactly backward based on the news flow. Are The Fed and Regulators lying or is the "optimism" incredibly misplaced (and even stupid if they're rotating out of winners for what were just announced would be losers!)

6. P/Es are at record levels. Yes, that's on "as reported" 12 month trailing, and it is down materially since one of the two "disaster quarters" is now gone. But even with the other gone (which it will be in another month) we will be trading at somewhere around 40 or 50x earnings, an utterly unsupportable level and above where we were in 1999 - just before the entire market fell apart. Even on "operating earnings" we're trading at 24 times - outrageously overvalued from a historical perspective.


This post has been edited by Onemorething: Jan 8 2010, 05:00 PM

My view ... we are heading high inflation era very soon.
Those who squeeze to buy will sell if they cant cope up with the
high inflation. We all know, we like to owe to own. Our shopping habit never change... spending on unnecessary items, credit cards, car loan for 9years, interest free stuff...

Property prices will keep rising as everybody know property will make money. Those who are lucky will walk out rich, unlucky ones will become poor. It's gonna be like HK & SG soon. or worst VN, PH or ID.

this is more like it giving us info & facts for our neutral viewing & letting us decide
my view remains the same, base on the data collated
in a few years time, we wil know the answer - for now, pls make your own stand & decide
those who were waiting for great depression part 2 ala 1929 during early year 2009 mus be very dissapointed

coz Ben did his research on tis & is the right man for the right job at the right time
look at the year of the article

http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/sp...022/default.htm

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2007/06/15/...-matters-today/

http://sify.com/finance/no-comparison-betw...egvc3geaad.html

the thing is, did u make money from this about 'once in a decade' economic cycle crash?

my take...
http://mykangtao.blogspot.com/2010/01/prop...ble-or-not.html

Happy new year. Again, property price will be on the up trend especially in the city area, because inflation is not yet the end. New development launching is getting very slow. Malaysia Government going to charge 5% property gain tax ( by now still not yet start ) begin from this year, however, for property bought more than 5 years will it be exclude in this issue, government still yet to confirm.

This is a great read.

By Andy Xie 01.10.2010 18:32
Trapped Inside A Property Bubble
When China's real estate bubble finally bursts while exports become less competitive, the consequences could be severe.


http://english.caing.com/2010-01-10/100106991.html

@tianbian,
I thought RPGT of 5% is confirmed to be applicable only for properties sold within a 5 year period. Any properties bought and sold out of the 5 year period is exempted from the RPGT?

Also, my take is that in the last 2 years, the property market has indeed slowed down but this cycle of economic downturn has not seen property prices dipping [unlike the last cycle]. My POV is that the property market will start flourishing and prices will not drop.

the feedback comments r funi

Please give me some numbers to backup your statement above. The infrastructures, the business operating environment, transportation, availability of skilled workforce, subcontractors, materials, etc. determine the total cost of a product from manufacturing country to consuming country. Please tell me one product that China is currently producing and exporting that will no longer be competitive in the work market I will prove that you are wrong! I am a manufacturer in China since 1990

here is another site to support ur contrarian view

Reading The Herald Tribune over breakfast in Hong Kong harbor last week, my eye went to the front-page story about how James Chanos — reportedly one of America’s most successful short-sellers, the man who bet that Enron was a fraud and made a fortune when that proved true and its stock collapsed — is now warning that China is “Dubai times 1,000 — or worse” and looking for ways to short that country’s economy before its bubbles burst.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/opinion/...tml?flyingspaghettimonster=opinion

my view remains the same, until there r further signs of meltdown

when do you think the property price will go down 50%?

If in these few years, I want to save to buy during the dip..

Should be one or two years right?

No way for prime location.. the only way is up..

The question is why do you think property price will go down 50%? if it doesn't happend, are you going to wait forever? my advice is ... buy now...

cheap properties are available every now & then.

BUT the key is, whether u can spot it & subsequently buy it when everyone else wouldn't.

Think again friend ... gst, petrol, toll, sugar, real property gain tax etc & many more very newly created ways to tax us.

@epalbee3,
I doubt there's going to be a dip in property prices; seriously.

i'll second that opinion!
my view on this subject. although many share the same sentiments that the worse have yet to surface, i too doubt that property price is going to have a drastic drop. emotionally wise, i sense that we could result in a 2nd recession ala W curve but i would like to share with all on the property scene.
i'm in the property/construction line for a few good years now and looking at construction costs nowadays are just plain scary. steel was less than RM2/kg inclusive of labour just a few years back and it went up to as high as rm5/kg at peak! what use to be rm200/psf saleable immediately balloned to rm250/psf! this increase of price was mainly due to increase of raw material price.
remember the diesel/petrol increased? that was a huge increase before it stabilise to rm1.80. a lot of projects/contractors got stuck. not because they wanted to but they are forced to. imagine if you secure a project at that time. every kg of steel you are doing, you are doing at a loss. if developer refuse to compensate, the contractor have no choice but to forsake the project. the developer realise this and have to compensate some back to the contractors. this is true for 'sold' projects then. developer took a huge profit margin cut.
nowadays, material prices is still going haywire. especially items which are imported. AUD$ have seen tremendous increase. but this usually applies to high-end projects. med and low end projects usually consist of local materials only. but even then, some requires import of materials.
back to normal projects. with raw material prices such as diesel/petrol, cement, sand fluctuating like nobody business, how would you think the contractor would price? too conservative, they do at a loss, too high, they lose the job outright. developer needs to cushion in some factor as contingencies for these events. else, same scenario, uncompleted projects.
so guys, if a project is selling 'cheap', beware, you might never receive your keys. this is a hard truth fact. under these circumstances, i bet you would also do the same if you are the boss of the developer or contractor. either you die or they die. it's dog eat dog world out there.
having said all that, i of course hope for better economy. but the projects that are due for handing over in the next few years are indeed alarming. property overhang will increase. maybe it will be due for a correction. maybe not. statistic wise, kl remains one of the cheapest (and i really do mean cheap) place to invest. some of hk latest project is commanding HKD40k/psf!!! that's about RM20k/psf. and klcc is having a tough time maintaining rm2k/psf!
for a win win situation, i really hope the nation vision to push for a high income society. the property can maintain their ridiculous price (to our standard) but at the same time, raise all employee's salary.
a sweeper in HK can earn HKD8000 a month. go figure how much does the guy sweeping the city center in kl earn?
if a fresh graduate commands RM5k/mth, it will justify having condos being priced rm600k outright.
that's my view and hope on the industry and future. am not an expert and i don't read much finance articles. just an ordinary joe sharing my view.
cheerios!