The PropertyGuru Market Index (“PMI”) shows that asking prices of homes in Malaysia continue to drop nationwide as well as the key property epicentres of Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Johor and Penang. The downward trend is reflected in both quarterly and annual price movements despite improved consumer sentiment of 42 percent and 53 percent of Malaysians wishing to buy a home by the end of 2018.
In the third quarter of 2018 (“Q3 2018”), the PMI showed that asking prices by real estate developers and individual owners nationwide had dipped by 1.8 percent from the preceding quarter. Year-on-year, prices show a 2.5 percent drop.
Similar to the national trend, all key property epicentres in Q3 2018, recorded a quarterly decrease. Kuala Lumpur saw the largest drop by 3.2 percent from the previous quarter, followed by Johor at 3.3 percent, Selangor at 1.8 percent and Penang at 1.3 percent. Johor has been on an upward trend experiencing an upward capital appreciation in the market from Q4 2016 till Q2 2018 until a slight Year-on-Year dip of 2.3 percent was recorded in Q3 2018.
On an annual basis, Selangor recorded the highest yearly decrement with 2.4 percent, followed by Johor at 2.3 percent, Penang at 0.7 percent and Kuala Lumpur at 0.5 percent. With the exception of Johor, all regional markets continue to show a discount to their 2015 base prices. Johor continues to maintain an upwards trend-line, but it remains to be seen if the trend will persist going into Q4 2018 and 2019.
