Housing prices in Malaysia, especially in the Klang Valley, have been surging in the past year or so, giving rise to concerns that there could be a property bubble.

Escalating prices in the Klang Valley property market have led to complaints that houses in both the primary and secondary markets are beyond the reach of most people.

The Bukit Bintang area in Kuala Lumpur will be the next hot spot with several factors working in its favour, says cartographer Ho Chin Soon at The Edge Investment Forum on Real Estate 2011.

Shopoffice investors should aim to sell only three years after a handover from a developer to maximise their earnings, says Reapfield Properties Sdn Bhd senior vice-president Gerard Kho.

The government recently proposed new measures to tackle the issue of abandoned housing projects in the country. One proposal is to compel developers to implement the build-then-sell (BTS) concept in property development.

As the speakers at The Edge Investment Forum on Real Estate 2011, themed “Buy, sell or hold?”, were unable to take all the questions from the floor, participants were invited to send in any questions they might have for the respective speakers.

KUALA LUMPUR: Viva Home, the first mall of its kind in the country that pools home furnishing retailers under one roof, expects to see an occupancy rate of 90% when it officially opens next month.

LONDON: The cost of market entry for first-time owner-occupiers is preventing many from buying their own home and so is boosting demand for rental property in London.

KUALA LUMPUR: The Asia Pacific Real Estate Association (Aprea) has released a corporate governance index for Malaysian real estate investment trusts (M-REITs) as part of its efforts to beef up corporate governance of listed Asian real estate investment funds.The index is calculated based on qualitative and quantitative measures derived from information from publicly-available documents such as

KUALA LUMPUR: Property developer S P Setia Bhd is sponsoring the publication of a coffee table book entitled Selangor: 300 Early Postcards that captures the transformation of Selangor through a series of postcard galleries.The book is authored by Prof Dr Cheah Jin Seng and published by Editions Didier Millet and Jugra Publications.