DAILY EXPRESS. 12TH FEBRUARY: The long abandoned Sulaman condominiums that came under liquidator care to be rehabilitated and finally completed recently, has since obtained Occupancy Certificate and was the most positive news for Sabah’s property market moving into 2023.
The other positive development was implementation of Sabah’s own MM2H that brightens property market’s prospect with Chief Minister Datuk Seri Hajiji Noor’s intention to launch a lower qualifying threshold Sabah Malaysia My Second Home (SMM2H) programme to make Sabah more attractive and affordable to foreigners wishing to live in the State.
Hajiji lowered the threshold from RM1 million to RM600,000, effective April 6, 2022. Hence, Sabah’s programme would not follow the new requirements meted out by the federal MM2H.
“With our own SMM2H, we aim to make Sabah more attractive to foreigners wishing to move to and live in Sabah. We hope to see high-value foreigners and talents moving to Sabah and creating economic spin-offs,” Hajiji explained as the state strives to be investor-friendly.
The federal government’s new “residence by investment” visa, officially named the Premium Visa Programme (PViP targetted only high-net-worth individuals seeking to invest and reside in Malaysia.
Before Nov 19 GE15, the previous government has policies to boost the property market, such as the waiver on the Real Property Gains Tax (RPGT) and the Memorandum of Transfer (MoT) stamp duty waiver for first-time house buyers who will be able to enjoy a 100 per cent Memorandum of Transfer stamp duty exemption when they purchase properties priced below RM500,000, while purchasers of properties priced between RM500,001 to RM1 million will be eligible for a 50 per cent discount on the stamp duty.
Under the previous government Budget 2022, there is exemption of Real Property Gain Tax (“RPGT”) for properties disposal by Malaysian citizens and permanent residents (“PR”) from 6th year onwards, effective from 1 January 2022. Additionally, RM1.5 billion allocation for affordable homes (“Rumah Mesra Rakyat”) and RM2 billion guarantee to banks via Housing Credit Guarantee Scheme to gig workers for the purpose of easier access to financing.
The Sabah Housing and Real Estate Developers Association (Shareda) lauded the Sabah version of MM2H saying it could benefit the State with RM1 billion in property investments annually if the policies of the Sabah MM2H are simplified and made easy to comply.
The requirements for the peninsula MM2H are still very high — applicants are required to deposit RM1 million into a merchant bank, plus a monthly income of over RM40,000 and a minimum stay of 90 days.
Property developers in Sabah also lauded the Sabah Assembly passing an amendment to the Enactment of Temporary Measures for Reducing the Impact of Coronavirus Disease 2020 to extend the exemption period for housing developers and homebuyers in the state involving late payment charges, delivery of vacant possession, and liquidated damages as well as the defect liability period.
Developers said the extension period provided under the Enactment from March 18 to Dec 31, 2020, and then from Jan 1, 2021 until March 31, 2021, was insufficient, and there was a need to extend the exemption period for developers and homebuyers provided by the Enactment from April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022 due the tight Movement Control Order and standard operating procedures to curb Covid-19.
This had prohibited developers and contractors from working at construction sites, which made it difficult for them to complete and deliver homes to buyers within the period stipulated in the sale and purchase agreements as regulations and standard operating procedures such as cross-district travel restrictions, limits on the number of workers on construction sites, and closure of construction sites due to detection of positive Covid-19 cases affected the completion and delivery of house units to homebuyers.
On the national scene, the National Property Information Centre (NAPIC), which comes under the Valuation and Property Services Department revealed that over 188,000 transactions worth RM84.40 billion were recorded in the first half of (H1) 2022, an increase of more than 30 per cent in volume and value compared to the same period in 2021.
The residential property sector recorded 116,178 transactions worth RM45.62 billion in the review period, an increase of 26.3 per cent in volume and 32.2 per cent in value year-on-year (y-o-y).
The commercial property segment recorded 15,169 transactions valued at RM14.02 billion, up by 45.4 per cent in volume and 28.3 per cent in value compared with the same period in 2021.
The first half of 2022 saw more than 10,000 newly launched units, down by 66.7 per cent against 31,687 units in H1 2021.
NAPIC said 20.3 per cent of newly launched units were sold, slightly lower than the 20.6 per cent recorded in H1 2021.