Budget 2019: A mixed bag, says RHB Research Institute

PETALING JAYA (Nov 2): The Budget 2019 is a mixed bag as far as the housing sector is concerned, said RHB Research Institute senior analyst Loong Kok Wen.

“Overall, there is nothing really good, really bad – it was a mixed [bag] of announcements. The stamp duty waiver for first time purchases of homes valued from RM300,000 to RM1 million in 1H2019 is an incentive for the developers to unwind their unsold inventory and is good for developers that sell a lot of affordable products priced at RM500,000, such as Mah Sing, Matrix and Tambun Indah. 

“Meanwhile, the total fund of RM1 billion which will be established by Bank Negara Malaysia for buyers of affordable homes priced up to RM150,000 may not be so relevant as the selling price of homes from the developers are above this price range,” Loong told EdgeProp.my over a phone interview.

She also pointed out that the stamp duty rate for the transfer of property worth over RM1 million to be increased by 1 percentage point from 3% to 4% as well as the increase of the Real Property Gains Tax (RPGT) from 5% to 10% for companies, non-citizen individuals and non-permanent residents from the sixth year of disposal may affect developers whose projects have a lot of foreign buyers.

“Something new which we saw in the Budget 2019 announcement is the peer-to-peer lending scheme which so far sounds okay to help some homebuyers [to buy a home]. On the surface it looks like something that will work to provide relief to the market. 

“Some of the homebuyers may be unable to fork out the 20% payment because for a RM500,000 home, they will need to fork out RM100,000, unless the developer may be offering to subsidise the 10% [half of the 20%],” Loong added.