To prevent an oversupply of pricey houses or a lack of affordable homes, the Finance Ministry’s Valuation and Property Services Department (JPPH) should quickly publish its statistics, according to Deputy Finance Minister II Datuk Lee Chee Leong.
“Timely and accurate data are very important. I strongly urge all data providers to continue supplying data as required by law. At the same time, JPPH should strengthen its role as the main property data source in the country.”
Notably, JPPH’s annual Property Market Report is only made available every April or four months after the end of a year.
According to JPPH (Operation) Deputy Director-General Dr Zailan Mohd Isa, her agency and the National Property Information Centre (NAPIC) only serve as data collectors. To expedite the release of property statistics, all groups that provide this info should submit them in a timely manner in the prescribed form for easy compilation.
“The data providers are developers, the government, property agents, hoteliers and property managers (for retail). Do they give the data as what we request? That is the pertinent question.”
“Sad to say, we have to really educate our data providers. We are doing that. We have the property information unit at all the branch offices who give hands-on training so that they know how to use our system and to submit data online. This is ongoing,” she added.
However, Director-General of Valuation and Property Services Nordin Daharom noted that real estate statistics cannot be quickly provided at present as many agencies are involved.
“In property data, you have to go through the process of so many departments. The fastest to go to JPPH is almost one or two months before the transaction is concluded,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Property Market Report for 1H 2017 revealed that the number of unsold completed houses surged 40 percent year-on-year to 20,807 units collectively worth RM12.26 billion.
“Condominiums and apartments costing over RM500,000 dominate the unsold homes in Malaysia,” noted Lee.
He explained that the overhang of residential properties was affected by pricing and location. For instance, homes valued at RM300,000 are considered affordable in Kuala Lumpur, but this is not necessarily the case in other parts of the country.
Hence, Lee is urging local officials to take into account JPPH figures before permitting new housing projects.
“Local authorities need to carry out market research using statistics and indicators from JPPH before granting approval for development projects.”
“The same recommendations should also be proposed to property developers so that the right decisions are made to ensure the sustainability of the nation’s real estate market,” he added.
PropertyGuru offers comprehensive, insightful quarterly overview of home pricing trends at national level, as well as the key property markets of Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Johor and Penang via its PropertyGuru Market Index (PMI) report.
The PMI is derived from PropertyGuru’s extensive proprietary data, which includes (but is not limited to) the asking prices of over 250,000 residential property listings on PropertyGuru.com.my.
