House prices up 20% in 2010?

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 17 — House hunters will likely face higher prices next year as pent up demand and gains from the stock market boost the property sector.

Houses on the secondary market could also be hit by an additional five per cent increase in prices as owners looking to sell try to cover the real property gains tax (RPGT) which comes into effect in January.

According to the Real Estate and Housing Developer’s Association (Rehda), slightly over half the respondents in a survey of its members expect property prices to increase up to 20 per cent over the next six months.

About 30 per cent of the respondents expect prices to remain stable, while less than five per cent expect prices to decrease.

The stock market has made substantial gains this year and investors who benefitted will likely be looking to put their money in property.

“Six to nine months after the stock market increases, it goes into brick and mortar,” said Rehda deputy president Datuk Michael Yam at a briefing today on the property outlook for next year.

On the positive side, interest rates remain low and banks continue to be flush with extra funds, therefore making the arrangement of home financing easier.

Yam, however, stressed that there was still a relatively low barrier to home ownership in Malaysia and ticked off a list of factors in the homebuyer’s favour, including interest rates as low as BLR (base lending rate) minus 2.3 per cent; margins of financing up to 100 per cent; zero lock in period; stamp duty exemptions; and repayment periods extended to thirty years or up to the age of 75.

“Even I can qualify for a (30 year) loan now,” he quipped.

According to Rehda officials at the press conference, the average value of homes transacted in 2009 is estimated to be between RM200,000 and RM250,000 when excluding low cost homes, and about RM168,000 when taking into account low cost houses.

Fresh graduates, however, could face difficulty buying properties in the city where prices are much higher.

Yam said that there were no official figures available for the average price of link homes in the Klang Valley but said that there were terrace houses in some suburbs available for about RM400,000, as compared with RM200,000 in smaller towns and cities like Kluang and Kuantan.

“Graduates may have a problem without help from their parents,” he said.

“They earn maybe RM3,000 to RM4,000 a month, which means they can borrow only RM150,000 to RM200,000. It is not possible to buy a terrace house [with that level of income] but maybe an apartment.”

He added that developers might have to consider building smaller units for the fresh graduate market segment, in the region of 600 sq ft apartments that sell for RM300 per sq ft.

A long term boom is also expected for the housing industry that could put upward pressure on prices as Yam said that slightly over half of the population is below 24 years of age and would later enter the homebuyers market.

“These people will be pushing to enter the property market,” said Yam.

Housing prices in some parts of the world such as China, Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia have risen dramatically over the two years, prompting a public outcry.

Prices of private homes in Singapore reportedly rose by 16 per cent in the third quarter and there are concerns of a speculative asset bubble building in Hong Kong.

According to Ratings Agency Malaysia economist Kristina Fong, asset bubbles were not evident in Malaysia and an over-supply of units on the Malaysian property market is likely to cap price escalation.

Truly the penitent is not one who laments over the evil he has committed, but one who laments over all the evil that he is capable of committing. A wise landowner not only cuts the thornbush that has pricked him, but every thornbush on the field that is waiting to prick him.

- St. Nikolai Velimirovich (1880-1956) in Prayers by the Lake

feminist

But my feminist world becomes smaller and smaller to the point where I have to wonder if I can really be a feminist anymore. Now I'm beginning to question even whether or not it is feasible to retrofit a critical analysis of society based on gender to cope with the fact that some women are assigned male at birth and some men are assigned female at birth. I used to think, "Sure, why not?" But the "why not" is playing out in the blogosphere: transgender acceptance within feminism is looking more and more every day like a failed experiment.

mistressnaoko

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 13, 2003 - An obsession with ornamental fish in Asia has unleashed a killer hybrid in Malaysia which is terrorising local fish in the wild, anglers claim. The flowerhorn, an odd-looking creature with a hump on its forehead and patterns on its body resembling Chinese letters, is the focus of a major craze in Malaysia and other parts of Asia.

Depending on the size of the hump and the quality of colour and markings, the carnivorous fish can fetch thousands of dollars. A particularly prized flowerhorn was expected to reach 1.2 million ringgit (315,790 US dollars) at an upcoming auction here. "The craze for rearing the fish all started when someone claimed to have made it rich after getting his lottery numbers from the black markings on the fish's body," Raymond Yen, a flowerhorn breeder told AFP.

The distinctive hump is also found on the Chinese God of Longevity. "People believe it brings them wealth and good luck," he said. First introduced to Malaysia about four years ago, the flowerhorn is believed to be a hybrid between two cichlid species from Central and South America which has since been crossed with other species and therefore lacks a scientific name.

But despite the craze, not all flowerhorns look pretty enough or "lucky" enough for an aquarium, so many of the fish are tossed into the wild where they are believed to be wreaking havoc, according to the Malaysian Angling Association. "It is the biggest con job that the aquarium industry has ever seen. You're talking about 80,000 to 100,000 ringgit (26,315 dollars) for a fish," the association's vice-president, Ismail Feisol, told AFP. "But not all fetch that much. A poor boy can afford a fry for three ringgit," he said.

When the fish mature and fail to display the sort of colouring expected from a quality flowerhorn they are invariably dumped into the nearest drain, pond or waterway. Raymond Yen said many breeders toss unwanted flowerhorn. "Most of them are superstitious. They know their fish won't fetch a high price but they believe that since it's a fish that brings good luck it will bring you bad luck if you kill it."

Ismail Feisol said that some Malaysians also buy them specially to release into the wild. "They think they can get rid of their 'suey' (bad luck) that way."

"From a pair, you could get 200 fry every six months. The situation is critical." He said every water body in Kuala Lumpur and neighbouring Selangor state was infested with flowerhorn, while the fish had also found its way into rice fields and canals in the far north. An experiment involving throwing bread on the waters of seven lakes in Kelana Jaya, Selangor, showed that most of the fish which rose were flowerhorn, some of them hideously mutant.

The fear is that they could start wiping out local fish, much like the Asian snakehead which recently caused alarm bells to sound in the United States. Concerned about the potential damage to its inland fisheries, the US banned imports of the fish, which is known for its razor-sharp teeth and voracious appetite.

Although aquarium specimens average about 25 centimetres (10 inches) in length, flowerhorns can grow up to three kilogrammes (more than six pounds) in the wild, Raymond said. "Nearly all local fish would be affected. The flowerhorn eat anything," Ismail said. "We have realised that where this fish is in abundance, there are no more snakehead because they attack the fry. The three-spotted gurami, which is a slow-moving fish, is badly affected. The fighting fish too.

"At the end of the day, there will be no more local fish." In an effort to fight back, he said: "We will try to catch the present stock and add local predator fish like the Malaysian jungle perch, featherback, giant snakehead, and pray that nature will take its course. "These are vicious buggers, hopefully they will wallop the flowerhorn."

Environmentalist Chris Shepherd of Traffic Southeast Asia told AFP he had not heard that the flowerhorn had spread in the wild in Malaysia, but said if they did this could create a potentially serious threat to the native species and their habitat. "There has been little or no research done on the impact these fish will have, but it is pretty safe to say that releasing them into the wild will come to no good."