Many Malaysians still complain that house prices in major cities such as KL, JB, Penang are too expensive and Malaysians can’t afford to pay for such crazy house prices. But, according to a recent survey report, KL homes are among the cheapest in the world!
Reported by Malay Mail, the Malaysian capital ranked 32nd out of 35 global cities with an average property price of RM494,266 (US$119,738), according to Global Living report by real estate firm CBRE.
The report compared investment residential properties across 35 cities listed Hong Kong at the top spot with an average property price of RM5,098,864 (US$1,235,220) while neighboring Singapore, came up second with an average property price of RM3,609,320 (US$874,372).
Kuala Lumpur recorded a healthy 4.9 per cent house price growth last year despite being ranked as the city with lower priced residential properties.
So, the question is, why Malaysians still complain about the house prices? Many of us still wish the house prices are same as 10 years ago when we could buy a decent condominium around RM200,000++ and the build quality were even more impressive than the current ‘high class’ condo?
The land and construction material has definitely increased prices in the past 10 years, but most importantly, I think the main reason house prices shot up is because of speculative property investment and greediness of property developers.
Unfortunately (in general), Malaysians remain pretty much the same competitiveness in their ability to make money or productivity, and we couldn’t catch up with the higher living standard and inflation. Many Malaysians who are lazy to work hard go for money game and MLM, hoping to make quick money. Moreover, the education quality is not high to train students to become highly competent in the globalized world today.
The inefficiency of the government and lousy ability to attract foreign direct investment due to red tapes, quotas, bad attitudes, stupidity and corruptions etc also contributed to our economy become stagnant.
In order to catch up with world, Malaysia needs to act fast. not just the government, but people must also work hard, work diligently, think creatively and have the real “Malaysia Boleh” attitudes to win against tough competitions from neighboring counties such as Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore etc.
With our rich resources, there are no reasons for Malaysia to lose to other countries. We must work together regardless of races and differences to achieve the common goals for the good of our future generation.
If our competency increase, then Malaysians can definitely afford the current house prices which are unlikely to fall any further because regional comparison and foreign house buyers.
Blog by James Chow