KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 12): Almost half, or 48%, of developers surveyed by the Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association (Rehda) said they did not plan for any launches in the second half of 2022 (2H2022), with the top reason being unfavourable market conditions.
Rehda’s latest market outlook survey covered 150 respondents.
Other reasons pointed out by respondents for not launching in 2H2022 were delays in approval from authorities, as well as having projects in the planning stage, according to the association’s president Datuk NK Tong.
Besides the 48% of respondents that did not plan for launches in 2H2022, the other 52% anticipate launching a total of 7,459 landed residential units, 7,224 strata residential units and 275 commercial units.
The market outlook survey also found that developers in Peninsular Malaysia are also planning to launch more residential properties within the RM250,001 to RM500,000 range in 2H2022.
“Except for three states, future launches will be within the range of RM250,001 to RM500,000. Melaka aims to launch mostly units priced at RM100,001 to RM250,000, Johor will launch RM700,001 to RM1 million units, while Kelantan has no planned launches,” said Tong.
Even with most future residential property launches that are priced below RM500,000 per unit, Tong highlighted that 66% of developers with future launches predicted that the sales performance for the first six months for these new units would be 50% and below.
He said developers are not hopeful about consumers' purchasing power in the next 12 months.
According to the survey, most developers (44%) are “pessimistic” about consumers’ purchasing power in 2H2022. For 1H2023, the “pessimistic” level slid to 41% but remained the highest polled.
As for overall property industry outlook, in terms of residential sector growth and property sales performance, Tong said most developers hold a “neutral” stance.