Foreigners More Upbeat On M'sian Real Estate

Source : The Business Times, May 15, 2008

(KUALA LUMPUR) Foreigners are more bullish about the Malaysian property market than locals, according to a survey by one of the country's property websites, thinkproperty.my.

Its chief executive officer Asim Qureshi said in the survey involving 250 participants, significantly more foreigners were positive about Malaysian real estate.

In a statement yesterday, he said 48 per cent of the foreigners surveyed indicated that the outlook over the next 12 months was positive, with 19 per cent negative and the remaining 33 per cent neutral.

Foreign participants believed that Malaysia will be relatively immune from the expected global slowdown as 45 per cent of them said the collapse of the US sub-prime market will not significantly affect local property prices, compared to 38 per cent who believed the impact will be significant.

'Foreigners are in a great position to be able to compare Malaysian real estate with that in other countries. Most foreign investors will not look at Malaysian property in isolation, but compare Malaysia with a number of other property hotspots,' Mr Asim said.

'In my view, foreigners are seeing the bigger picture - a picture in which they see that Malaysia has not had a property boom for over a decade. With robust fundamentals there is a good possibility Malaysia will see its own property boom in the next few years,' he said.

Mr Asim said reassuringly, Malaysians were positive about real estate in the country, with 33 per cent saying that the outlook was positive, and only 21 per cent opting for the negative outlook.

However, he noted that locals were more concerned about global events, with 43 per cent saying that the US sub-prime crisis will not affect Malaysian property prices significantly compared with 41 per cent who felt otherwise.

The survey also showed that property remained the most favoured investment type by far as indicated by 60 per cent of participants, compared to 26 per cent who favoured fixed deposits as the best performing investment type over the next 12 months, and 14 per cent who chose shares.

'Participants are unsurprisingly still most positive about residential property and this is likely due to the fact that the residential sector has been the backbone of the property sector and the most resilient property type since the Asian financial crisis,' Mr Asim said.

He said 28 per cent of those surveyed believed that detached or semi- detached houses will be the best performing asset type in Malaysia over the next 12 months, followed by 22 per cent for apartments and condominiums, and 18 per cent for linked houses.

Foreigners preferred condominiums over linked houses while locals favoured linked houses, and 11 per cent of the survey participants believed that offices will be the best performing property type while 7 per cent opted for the retail sector. -- Bernama