PropertyGuru Malaysia announced that its Malaysia Property Market Report (MPMR) Q3 2022, powered by PropertyGuru DataSense, saw an expected trend of gradual improvements, with the overall demand index moving upwards by 7.93% QoQ, despite being in negative territory in the previous quarter.

The report registered upward trends in several areas such as the Property Sale Market Index, Demand Index, and Supply Index across the landed and high-rise sectors. The slight improvements can be attributed to the transition of the COVID-19 endemic stage, allowing for the reopening of borders and increased productivity, leading to better consumer confidence.

Sheldon Fernandez, Country Manager, Malaysia (PropertyGuru.com.my and iProperty.com.my), shared, “As expected, the property market in the second quarter of the year saw a gradual trend of improvements, although it may not be fully out of the woods yet. Several ongoing factors such as the rising inflation, increase in the Overnight Policy Rate and affordability issues weigh in on the market conditions. While we have seen more activity in the last quarter, it will take some time before consumers are more confident in making large property decisions. The full impact of these factors will most likely be seen in the current quarter’s performance.”

Rental Demand Continues to Increase Amid Rising Inflation

With the rising inflation of 3.4% as of June 2022 and the Overnight Policy Rate increase to 2.25% earlier this year, potential homebuyers may continue to be cautious in making large purchasing decisions.

This trend was also captured in the Malaysia Property Market Report Q3 2022, as rental demand continued on an upward trend, registering a 12.89% QoQ growth and a massive 96.83% YoY rise in Q2 2022. With the ongoing inflation and worries of rising purchasing costs taking effect, potential homebuyers will gravitate towards rental as a short-term alternative, and the rental market will likely continue to expand to the year’s second half.

Meanwhile, the Rental Price index saw an increase of 2.82% QoQ and 4.46% YoY in Q2 2022. The slow but steady growth of asking rental prices is also leading to growth in the supply of rental properties, as landlords will be taking the opportunity to leverage the rising demand trend and enthusiastically listing properties.

Various Factors Contributing to Ongoing Market Recovery

According to the Malaysia Property Market Report Q3 2022, landed properties outperformed high-rise properties, with the Landed Sale Price Index moving upwards by 1.32% QoQ and 5% YoY in Q2 2022. There was also an uptick of 1.91% QoQ and 7.31% YoY in supply, indicating a slight increase in confidence for both buyers and sellers at this point.

This is consistent with the latest market report published by the Valuation and Property Services Department in April 2022, highlighting that the overall volume of property transactions increased by a marginal 1.5%. This comes on the back of transaction values rising by a significant 21.7%. The report also shared that the residential sub-sector is the largest contributor accounting for 66.2% of transaction volume and 53.1% of the transaction value.

Adding on to the gradual improvements seen in the last quarter, the reopening of borders after a long period of restrictions has brought back the prospect of the market’s expansion to appeal to foreign buyers. Findings by the Malaysian Development Investment Authority (MIDA) had indicated that Singaporean property investors were among the top 3 foreign direct investors in 2017 when exchange rate conditions were favourable.