Property investors no longer bound by territory

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FOLLOWING THE OPPORTUNITY: Image shows the Fulton Lane project in Australia by SP Setia. Wong states that with the availability of specialist property investment companies, territory is no longer the inhibition, investors go where opportunities exist. — Bernama photo.

FOLLOWING THE OPPORTUNITY: Image shows the Fulton Lane project in Australia by SP Setia. Wong states that with the availability of specialist property investment companies, territory is no longer the inhibition, investors go where opportunities exist. — Bernama photo.

KUCHING: With things looking more bullish in the property market despite the more cautious approach from investors, Malaysians are slowly looking beyond Malaysia for property investment.

Seulyn Wong, a property investment strategist with Ironfist Australia said that, “Today’s investors are more savvy and receptive of the idea of investing in international properties to tap opportunities away from home.”

She believed that the reason for this was the availability of specialist property investment companies that provide the needed research, support and facilitation have enabled investors to make decision and take action quickly, knowing full well that their risks were minimised where well-selected properties had been thoroughly screened through for them.

“I have personally been handling an increasing number of Malaysian investors coming into the Australian property scene over the past two years. Besides buying in the favoured city of Melbourne, they have now ventured into Perth, Brisbane, Sydney and Adelaide,” she added.

“Territory is no longer the inhibition, they go where opportunities exist.”

Wong noted that even Malaysian banks had responded to provide mortgages for Malaysian buyers investing overseas. Maybank, for instance, had introduced loans for property buying in London and Melbourne.

Given the above, Wong explained that she did foresee more Malaysians investing overseas. Seasoned investors understand fully well the concept of diversification. By spreading their investments geographically, they are effectively minimising their risks.

On the types of properties that people were investing in, Wong elaborated that the latest release of Australia’s census data clearly showed a shift of desire from living in houses to apartments in major Australian cities.

“With the rising cost of transportation, people want to live near to where they work. They no longer wish to spend too much time on congested roads and be stuck in heavy traffic.

“Young people are moving to converge in the cities for the life tyles they long for – eating out, partying, shopping, drinking. Even retired couples are selling their traditional large homes. They want to be able to ‘lock and leave’ to go for frequent holidays and not to be bothered with gardening and house maintenance,” she stated.

For the overseas investors, apartments or smaller unit villas and townhouses in well located areas had major appeal as these properties were easy to maintain, would collect better rentals and enjoyed lower vacancy rates giving them outstanding investment returns while providing a potentially higher capital appreciation.

Australia is one of the most transparent countries in the world for property investment, with plenty of well-collected data and analysis to aid decision-making.

The matured and efficiently operated property market has attracted a lot of international property investors to its shore. Rental yields for residential properties are high compared with Malaysian standards and vacancy rate well below the balanced rate of three per cent.

The often handsome rental income together with tax refunds make it very easy to ‘hold’ a property while waiting for its value to appreciate. It is not unusual to find individuals holding a few properties at the same time yet only contributing betweenA$20 and A$80 per week as ‘out of pocket’ payment.

She noted that overtime, with rental increases and expenses maintained, properties could go ‘cash flow positive’.

“With the use of right strategies, investors can accumulate numerous properties to form a balanced portfolio generating passive income to providedincome for their retirement life.”