KOTA KINABALU: 2012 was indeed a good year with the Malaysian economy soaring, said Sabah Housing And Real Estate Developers Association (Shareda) president Datuk Susan Wong Siew Guen.
With the coming New Year, Susan said the vibrant housing industry would witness the start of the second wave of national transformation plan, with the New Economic Model and the Economic Transformation Programme.
She pointed out in her New Year message that the government has introduced a number of economic and investment plans to stimulate a more robust and strong economic growth. It focused on moderation policies to promote national goodwill and harmony, enhance the national education and income, improvement of infrastructure development and so on.
Bank Negara remains resilient and continues to provide 90 percent loan margins to the homebuyers and bridging financing to the developers which are expected to continue making the property market stable and prosperous. Although palm oil price has dropped which partially affected the investment climate, nevertheless, Sabah is lucky to be located geographically at the centre of Southeast Asia.
Tourism is booming and the natural resources are abundant. Kota Kinabalu’s international airport is the second busiest in the country with direct flights connected to Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.
The unique beauty of nature and the good living environment have attracted a lot of tourists coming from different countries for business investments and buying properties which make our city continue to flourish.
“Our house prices are much cheaper than countries such as Singapore, Korea, Japan and Hong Kong and a lot of investors from foreign countries are looking forward to investing in Sabah.
“Because of this, it also attracted a lot of foreign and Hong Kong movie stars to Sabah’s housing and other investment opportunities,” said Susan. In the past, people liked to invest in the stock market. However, due to the recent crisis in the stock market, a lot of people now chose to buy properties for their investments, she added.
“The housing prices in Kota Kinabalu have also increased recently and every year the return profit is average at 8% per annum and this has allowed the investors to make good profits,” she said.
“On behalf of Shareda, I would like to thank the Sabah State Government, especially the Ministry of Local Government and Housing, for giving a lot of assistance and support to the housing industry which have faced with many challenges. We hope to continue to have a close relationship with the State Government in order to maintain this cooperation,” said Susan.