Residential property leads in Klang Valley

Saturday April 23, 2011

By ANGIE NG

angie@thestar.com.my

THE residential property sub-sector continued to spearhead the Klang Valley's market last year, making up 77.7% of the total volume of transactions in Kuala Lumpur and 76.8% of Selangor's property market volume.

According to the National Property Information Centre's (Napic) Property Market Report 2010 released on Wednesday, there were 376,583 property transactions worth RM107.44bil recorded nationwide last year.

Of this, Kuala Lumpur recorded 27,370 property transactions worth RM20.03bil, an increase of 8.1% and 45.3% over the transacted volume and value in the capital city from 2009.

Except for a 8.6% contraction in the development land sub-sector, transaction of the other property sub-sectors generally improved.

Commercial property recorded a 22.7% growth, industrial property grew by 9.2% and residential by 5.2%. In Kuala Lumpur, condominiums and apartments made up the largest portion of residential transactions with a 51% share of the total volume.

Houses within the price range of RM250,000 to RM500,000, RM500,000 to RM1mil, and above RM1mil registered double digit growth of 15.4%, 37.4% and 56.6% respectively.

Prices of residential property continued to strengthen and strong demand for properties in established upmarket neighbourhoods drove up prices of double-storey terrace houses in Taman Tun Dr. Ismail, Bukit Bandaraya, Bangsar Baru and Desa Sri Hartamas by 4.7% to 14.1%.

Prices in these housing schemes breached the RM1mil mark while similar units in Damansara Heights and Taman Sri Hartamas stabilised at RM725,000 to RM800,000.

Condominium units in Mont'Kiara were still sought after as shown by a 3.1% increase in sales recorded and 11.1% increase in prices to RM355,000 for a Mont'Kiara Sophia unit to as high as RM2.73mil for a 10 Mont'Kiara residence.

Exceptions to this were units in Mont'Kiara Palma, Mont'Kiara Aman and Mont'Kiara Meridin which decreased by 2.9%, 2.7% and 3% respectively.

Rentals of residential property were generally stable with upward movements notably in the high-rise segment.

In the commercial sub-sector, shops which accounted for 1,130 units dominated with a 20.5% share.

A substantial number of transactions of commercial property, mainly of purpose-built office buildings, worth a total of RM1.45bil were recorded last year.

The retail sub-sector remained steady with an overall occupancy of 84.2%.

It registered one new entrant (21,697 sq m), one new start (77,484 sq m) and one new planned supply for 13,006 sq m during the year.

Kuala Lumpur's office sub-sector recorded an occupancy rate of 81.2%, a slight fall from 83.3% in 2009.

The leisure sub-sector saw three new hotel openings - Sentral Hotel, G Tower Hotel and YY 38 Hotel - offering a total of 394 rooms.

The overall occupancy rate for three- to five-star hotels was at 69.2% compared with 65.9% in 2009.

In Selangor, a total of 90,414 property transactions worth RM36.6bil were recorded, an increase of 10.4% in volume and 30.6% in value from 2009.

Several major deals worth RM429.18mil were concluded involving three shopping complexes, nine purpose-built office buildings, a private hospital and three estate land.

Prices of residential property in Selangor also saw major increases with single-storey terrace houses in Petaling Jaya transacted at RM190,000 to RM343,000.

Houses in Subang Jaya and Bandar Sri Damansara saw increases of 8.9% and 5.8% respectively, to between RM250,000 and RM300,000.

The self-contained neighbourhoods of Bandar Utama and Mutiara Damansara saw prices of their double-storey terrace houses appreciated by 4.6% to 9.8% to between RM618,000 and RM760,000 in Bandar Utama, and by 2.1% to RM1.24mil to RM1.26mil for houses with larger land area of 193 sq m in Mutiara Damansara.

Similar houses in other parts of Petaling Jaya such as SS2, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25 recorded increases of 5.1% to 11.9% to between RM400,000 and RM680,000.

The primary residential market recorded launches of 10,002 units, higher than 8,430 units launched in 2009.

Last year, Selangor saw a drop in the number of overhang residential units to 3,180 units worth RM691.28mil compared with 3,770 units worth RM608.3mil in 2009. Condominiums/apartments formed the bulk with 1,468 overhang units.

The performance of the office sub-sector moderated with the average occupancy rate of purposebuilt office buildings dropping to 76.9% from 78% previously.

There were two new office buildings - Philomath Resource Centre Building with 6,359 sq m in Gombak and Empire Tower with 18,936 sq m in Subang Jaya.

The opening of Empire Suite in Subang Jaya added 217 hotel rooms to the hospitality market.

The overall occupancy rate for three to five-star hotels in the state improved to 60.3% after staying below the 60% mark for the past two years.