Auction action in property market hots up

AUCTIONS are generally associated with valuable or collectable items. After all, it is the highest bidder that gets the prize.

Take, for example, tuna auctions or the bidding war for art and antique pieces, whereby bidders are willing to outbid each other to get their hands on what they deem is the best catch of the day or the last of a unique piece.

But in Malaysia, property auctions are rarely percieved in the same light.

“Property auctions are mainly for distressed properties from banks. And although people are now more aware and accepting of auctions, many still believe properties for auction are quite a taboo,” said Property Auction House Sdn Bhd executive director Danny Loh.

It is estimated that some 200 properties are put up on auction by banks every month in Kuala Lumpur alone as borrowers are unable to meet their loan obligations. In Selangor, the figure hovers around 1,000 units.

Additionally, property auctions in Malaysia have been plagued by the presence of price-fixing syndicates and financial institutions are not exactly generous in funding purchases of auctioned properties, added Foong Chon Wai, a licensed auctioneer with Ng Chan Mau & Co Sdn Bhd.

“We definitely need more reputable auctioneers in the market. We want to raise transparency in the industry. And we need to continue educating owners on the benefits of auctions,” said Foong.

All these limitations aside, Foong said the property auction market has big potential here as the market is largely untapped.

Growing trend

The response to recent auctions has been overwhelming. At a recent CIMB Bank property auction, some 2,000 bidders showed up to get their hands on properties that were going under the hammer for prices below market value.

Loh said the increased interest in auctioned properties is due to the rising price of property.

“People don’t really have a choice. Property prices are going up and not many developers are building affordable housing. So auction fairs are one of the sources that helps meet the housing needs of the population,” he said.

Foong agrees that auctions are growing in popularity with investors seeking to get an asset for a steal.

“It is only at auctions that you can get a property below RM200,000. Although previously there were more investors at these auctions, now we are seeing more buyers looking for affordable homes,” Foong said.

He added that the auction market is also enjoying spillover from the primary housing market as new properties tend to be highly priced and mostly cater to the higher-income market.

Also, thanks to improving transport infrastructure, consumers are more willing to stay outside of the city centre, where most of the auctioned property is located.

Both Foong and Loh expect interest in auctioned properties to continue as banks are growing more tight-fisted and property prices are not expected to come down due to high land and construction costs.

But, apart from distressed properties, auctioneers are also hoping to see trends moving in favour of exclusive auctions where private owners opt to put their property up for sale via auctions instead of through property agents.

This would open up a whole new segment for the auction market and could potentially give the industry a much needed boost.

Loh noted that Property Auction House has carried out a few exclusive auctions, but they have not been very successful as such auctions are unable to draw sizeable crowds. But he is optimistic that it could be a growing trend in the future.

Bidders checking out property during the CIMB Auction at StarProperty.my Fair in 2010.

Stumbling block

Lee Bing Loon, another licensed auctioneer at Ng Chan Mau & Co Lee said the firm has been approached to carry out exclusive auctions but is reluctant to take on these cases as it is not fully confident of bringing the right crowd of interested bidders due to the stigma attached to auctioned properties.

Larger auctioneers are working together to raise the level of awareness on the benefits of sales by auction.

Auction firms also hope to establish a governing council for licensed auctioneers to raise the level of professionalism in the industry and work with the authorities to enforce stricter laws and regulations.

The lack of proper regulatory provisions is a stumbling block for the industry’s growth.

Among other challenges, Lee explained, is the low entry barriers into the auction industry, which only require auctioneers to have an SPM certificate and pass a competency interview. The licences are issued by individual states.

He added that there are now too many auctioneers. It is estimated that there are some 300 to 400 licensed auctioneers in Kuala Lumpur alone.

Industry observers note that many of the licensees are not full-time auctioneers. Thus, many do not do a good job in providing clients with professional services.

According to Loh, although there is growing awareness of auctions here, the Malaysian market is a far cry from established auction markets such as in Australia where auctions are a norm in property transactions.

“They do it very professionally. The owners and agents take pride in furnishing the properties and opening it up for viewing.

“And auctioneers dare to spend more on marketing the property because they have exclusive rights to sell off the property for their clients for a period of time.

“We do not enjoy that kind of exclusivity rights here so it is hard to allocate big marketing budgets for our auctions,” Loh said.

Certainly, more can be done to raise the profile of the auction industry. And education, auctioneers agree, is key to engaging consumers. Having mega auctions also gives the industry a more positive spin.

Foong is hopeful that the market will be more accepting of auctions as an option to sell off their property in three years time. He said an auction is the best way of determining the fair price of a property as people can bid for what they are willing to pay.

“Every time the hammer comes down, that is the fair value of the property,” he said.

Come prepared

CIMB Property Mart will be conducting two auction sessions on Sept 13 at the StarProperty.my Fair i-City Edition under Property Auction House and Ng Chan Mau & Co. More than 50 properties will be going under the hammer.

For prospective buyers considering auctioned properties, auctioneers point out a few things to do before the day of the auction:

• Inspect the physical property to have an idea on the as-is condition and identify if there are any building defects, illegal extensions/alterations and whether any major renovation or repair work is needed. Survey the surrounding area to ensure the locality is good such as no nearby high-tension cables and oxidation pond.
• Once you are satisfied with the condition of the property, contact the auctioneer to obtain a copy of the Proclamation of Sale. Read the terms and conditions carefully as they vary with different banks.
• Request or apply for a loan qualification with your friendly banker before bidding, to ensure you are able to meet the settlement timeline for the balance of payments.
• Conduct official titles search at the relevant land office and/or other relevant authorities. Check on the property’s lease tenure, restrictions in title, encumbrances and so on. Make necessary enquiries as to whether the sale is open to all races.
• Do some research on the fair market value of the property to avoid overbidding.
• On the day of the auction, don’t forget to bring:
• A bank draft or cashier’s order equivalent to 10% of the fixed reserve price.
• Your original as well as a copy of identification card (IC) while agents will have to produce a letter of authority from the intending bidder and a photocopy of the intending bidder’s IC. Corporate companies looking to bid will need to bring a certified true copy of the company’s Memorandum and Articles of Association, Forms 44, 24 and 49 as well as a board of director’s resolution.
• Additional funds to pay the difference between the deposit paid upon registration and 10% of the successful bid price.

>> Information provided by Property Auction House and Ng Chan Mau & Co

How GST Will Impact Home Prices & The Property Market

BY LOANSTREET INSIGHTS

WITH the coming implementation of Goods & Service Tax (GST) in April 2015, many Malaysians are concerned with what this bodes for prices in general. It is inevitable that home prices will also be affected. In this article, we explain how home and property prices will be affected moving forward.

To properly appreciate how GST will affect home prices, it is necessary to first understand how GST works. (Click here for a detailed but simple-to-understand explanation of how GST in Malaysia works).

Aside from GST, one must also have an understanding of the Sales Tax, which is the existing tax scheme affecting the property sector. GST will supplant the Sales Tax come April 2015.

Tax Scheme on Residential Property – The Similarities

In comparing both tax schemes, we have to first identify their similarities.

One similarity between GST and the existing Sales Tax scheme is that no taxes are charged or will be charged to the consumer on the purchase of a home / residential property. For GST, residential properties fall under the “Exempt Rated” basket of goods.(But do take note that GST will be charged to the consumer for commercial property purchases as commercial properties are “Standard Rated”).

However, during the creation of the final product (also known as the input stage in tax parlance), under both tax schemes, developers would incur taxes during procurement of their inputs and materials. And this is where the differences start to become apparent between both tax schemes. The tax rate for inputs and materials vary between GST and Sales Tax.

Sales Tax VS GST for Residential Properties – The Differences

Based on the Sales Tax Act of 1972, basic building materials such as bricks, cement and floor tiles fall inside First Schedule Goods, in which all the goods in this category will not be subjected to sales tax. Meanwhile, other building materials fall inside Second Schedule Goods, in which all the goods in this category will only be charged sales tax of 5%.

Under the new GST implementation, all building materials and services (E.g. Contractors, engineers) will be subject to GST with a standard rate of 6%. This will invariably raise the production cost for developers.

If you understand how GST works, you will notice that in most cases, the additional tax cost is simply passed on to the final consumer (Standard-Rated goods), or is claimed back from the government (Zero-Rated goods). But in this case (Exempt-Rated), the additional tax cost is borne by the party before the final consumer – The developer.

The developer does not have a next “victim” in the supply chain.

This seems like good news for home buyers as they do not have to pay GST when purchasing a home. However, one should not be too happy about this. It is no stretch of the imagination to think that developers would try to build in the additional tax costs into the final sale price implicitly.

Before & After GST – A Comparison

The tables below show a comparison between the cost of a new property before and after GST. Certain taxes and costs leading up to the sale to the final consumer have been simplified for this purpose.

Also, an assumption is made that developers are able to transfer 100% of all incurred tax costs over to the consumer via the sale price.

The example above shows a price increase of 3.41% for new residential properties post-GST implementation. But there is a plus point to this.

Overall, new residential properties may register a lower overall increase in tax burden compared to Commercial Properties that are Standard-Rated. This is because there still is the chance that developers may only transfer some and not all of their tax cost increases into the final retail price.

The downside to this is that where pricing for new commercial properties will be cleaner (Sales Price + GST), pricing for new residential homes would look inflated. This, in turn, will undoubtedly have a knock on effect on prices in the secondary house market.

Conclusion

As a home buyer, it pays to know what the implementation of GST might bode for home prices moving forward. If you skipped the entire article, here are all the key insights in a nutshell:

1)      With GST, there should be a once-off increase in property prices across the board

2)      While developers may not bill home buyers for GST, they could transfer the costs implicitly via the sale price

3)      The overall price increase for new residential properties could be marginally lower than that for new commercial properties

4)      The secondary home market should see a knock on effect in prices

Armed with this knowledge, you can make a better decision on when to purchase your home.

>> Loanstreet.com.my is a website enabling one to compare and apply for loans online.

Iskandar Malaysia – Lessons from China

ISKANDAR Malaysia was launched amid much fanfare in November 2006. Modelled after the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone in China, it was envisaged to capitalise on its current synergies with Singapore as it aimed to complement each other as an economic hub. Pearl River Delta’s vision was to establish a “center of advanced manufacturing and modern service industries”, and act as a “centre for international shipping, logistics, trade, conferences and exhibitions as well as tourism.” And this is largely what Iskandar Malaysia was envisioned to become.

One of the most successful cities in the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone is Shenzhen, a major city in the south of Southern China’s Guangdong Province, situated north of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. It was a mirror of what Iskandar Malaysia is to Singapore.

The differences between the two regions become apparent when we learn that the first move made by China was to launch in Shenzhen, the first Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in late 1979. Both Chinese citizens and foreign nationals have since invested enormous amounts of money in the Shenzhen SEZ.

More than US$30bil (RM95.7bil) in foreign investments has gone into both foreign-owned and joint ventures, at first mainly in manufacturing but more recently in the service industries as well. Shenzhen is now considered one of the fastest-growing cities in the world, some 34 years later. Shenzhen has seen its population and activity develop rapidly since the establishment of the SEZ. Shenzhen’s population is roughly 10 million. About six million of these people are non-local migrant workers who may return to their hometown/city on weekends and live in factory dormitories during weekdays. Incidentally, it is the largest migrant city in China.

An aerial view of the development in progress.

Today, Shenzhen is home to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange as well as the headquarters of numerous high-tech companies. Shenzhen is also one of the busiest container ports in China.

The lessons we can learn from the Shenzhen experience is that with Iskandar Malaysia, all the building blocks are in place; it’s getting the sequence right that is important. I strongly believe that Iskandar Malaysia has to look at what strengths it can leverage on in the immediate future and plan for the bigger vision later. Iskandar Malaysia has to start with a strong focus on manufacturing and its related services, just like Shenzhen did back in 1979.

The infrastructure to support this should be the primary focus. Once the industrial boom takes shape in Iskandar Malaysia, everything else will fall in place. It will attract a migrant professional population to Johor and with it, demands for housing and commercial developments.

What has been achieved in Iskandar in the current short time frame is truly remarkable. The strategy of catalytic projects such as the EduCity, Marlborough College, The Medini Commercial hub, shifting the Johor administration centre, Pinewood Studios, Legoland, Puteri Harbour Development and the remaking of Danga Bay have created a real estate frenzy the likes we have never seen in Johor’s history.

There has been a huge investment in capital to create these projects but has that translated into the kind of jobs and growth in population found at the core of the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone strategy? Only time will tell.

An American MNC tenant, HID.

Pengerang in southeast Johor, located at the south of Desaru and adjacent to Singapore, is the beneficiary of the Pengerang Integrated Petroleum Complex (PIPC) which was announced in 2011. It houses oil refineries, naphtha crackers, petrochemical plants as well as a liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal and a regasification plant.

There is no master plan for an industrial city there to house the working population that is expected to arrive in due course.

Southern Industrial & Logistics Clusters (SiLC) along the second link was planned as an industrial state without thought of accommodation for staff members and workers or that of the amenities for the population there. It has been successful in that all the land has been sold.

Unfortunately, much of the sales of land there were to speculators who are sitting on their assets and driving prices up.

As a result, land prices have risen approximately 300% over the past two years. There is an urgent need for planners of Iskandar Malaysia to allocate more land and build the infrastructure to attract serious catalytic industries, the ones that need 50 to 100 acres and employ 2,000 to 5,000 workers and professionals.

A bird’s eye view of EcoWorld Business Park.

This land should be kept for serious industries wanting to relocate to Johor as one of our main customers is Singapore where many MNC’s have their regional headquarters. We need to remember what made Shenzhen a success – it was Hong Kong. There is also a need for planned worker housing and related commercial developments to support it. We have done it before in Shah Alam, and more recently the Batu Kawan Industrial Estate in Penang are excellent templates.

Iskandar Malaysia has to take stock of the state of the industrial development within its borders. It is the beneficiary of excellent infrastructure but it needs to create a body like the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand (IEAT), which currently operates 12 industrial estates and co-manages 26 of Thailand’s 38 industrial estates.

The responsibilities of the IEAT are principally to create and organise industrial estates as well as to group together industrial facilities in a synergistic manner. However, private developers in Johor have seen the benefits of having a focused industrial development strategy and are building a new generation of industrial parks to assist Singapore’s industries relocate to Johor. Projects such as AME’s i-Park, SP Setia and Ecoworld’s Business Parks have become much sought-after products in a growing market. They offer products that are custom-built for clients, with high levels of security and a wonderful environment.

The main entrance of i-Park.

Iskandar Malaysia’s dilemma is that it has nine key economic thrusts to manage. I am sure it is difficult allocating adequate resources to all nine of them. They have done a terrific job to date but we must remember that Rome was not built in a day. We should not try and achieve in a five- to 10-year time span what other cities have taken 30 to 40 years to do. I believe that there is a need to reassess our priorities in developing Iskandar Malaysia, and remind ourselves that cities evolve primarily from economic activities.

Ipoh and Kuala Lumpur grew from the tin industry, Penang and Malacca from trade through their ports, many smaller towns grew from the surrounding rubber and oil palm plantations. We need to look at the success of Shenzhen to make Iskandar the success it deserves to be.

>> Datuk Stewart LaBrooy is the chief executive officer of Axis REIT Managers Bhd.