KAJANG: The residential overhang worsened last year, rising 30.6% in volume to 32,313 units and 27% in value to RM19.86 billion, as revealed in the Property Market Report 2018.
According to the report, which was launched by the Valuation and Property Services Department today, high rise residential houses formed the bulk of the overhang units, representing 43.4% of the total.
Most of the overhang units were located in Perak (20.7%) and Kuala Lumpur (19.2%). The number of overhang homes in 2017 stood at 24,738 units worth RM15.64 billion.
Overall, the property market was flat last year, recording only marginal increases of 0.6% in volume and 0.3% in value against 2017.
The property sector recorded a total of 313,710 transactions worth RM140.33 billion last year, supported by the residential segment which recorded 197,385 transactions worth RM68.75 billion.
Despite the flat growth last year, the property market is expected to stabilise this year, with improvements in volume and value of transactions already seen in the first quarter of the year (1Q 2019).
National Property Information Centre (Napic) director Md Badrul Hisham Awang said the overall property market registered a 5.1% increase in value of transactions and 6.1% increase in volume of transactions in 1Q 2019 compared with a year ago.
Speaking to reporters at the launch of the Property Market Report 2018 today, Badrul said the outlook is positive for 2019 based on the preliminary 1Q 2019 figures. He said the total value of transactions during the quarter was about RM36.97 billion compared with RM35.17 billion a year ago.
“To soften the overhang issue, the government launched the National Home Ownership Campaign (HOC 2019). At the end of the campaign in June, we will see the impact, in the third or fourth quarter this year,” he said.
Last year, a total of 197,385 transactions worth RM68.75 billion was recorded in the residential segment, representing a 1.4% rise in volume and 0.4% rise in value. The number of new launches stood at 66,040 units, 14.9% lower than 77,570 units launched in 2017 while sales performance was moderate at 34.6% acorss the board.
Condominiums and apartments formed the bulk of new launches at 36.8%, followed by two to three storey terrace houses which recorded 29%.
Construction activities declined last year, with 93,547 units completed compared with 94,198 units completed in 2017. Starts were also lower by 8.6%.
The Malaysian House Price Index stood at 193.3 points, up by 3.1 points from 187.6 points in 2017. The growth was led by the terrace house price index which rose 6.4% while the index for high-rise and detached homes fell 1.2% and 1.8% respectively.
