BIG SUM, POOR SALES

TALKS.....Susan Wong, the Shareda President, talks to Musa Aman, the Sabah about her property show. On Musa's right is Ghulam Haidar Khan, Assistant Minister Of Local Government And Housing.

By : REBECCA CHONG

SUSAN Wong Siew guen is elated that the recent four-day property exhibition “sold” 1,500 flats or condominiums, houses and shops worth 650m ringgit ($209.4m). She is the president of the Sabah Housing and Real Estate Developers Association (Shareda) which holds the yearly ProPEX in Kota Kinabalu.

The figure may look good. But it is only a quarter of the 2.6 billion ringgit of properties put up for sale. Exhibitors had hoped to sell most of their 6,000 properties.

There is doubt over how much of the 650m ringgit of properties is real sales. Buyers pay a small booking fee for them. And no sale is made until a sales and purchase agreement between a buyer and developer is signed.

Wong says the figure represents “confirmed” and “intended” sales but she does not give a breakdown.

This means three-quarters of the exhibited properties are unsold, according to industry officials. Their developers will have a tough choice: either build them first and sell later or ultimately they have to abandon their projects if they stay too long on the drawing board without enough buyers to get them off the ground.

Nevertheless Wong notes that a few of the 37 housing developers sold 90% of their properties. She does not say how many and is overjoyed that one of them has sold all 28 of its houses priced at 1.6m ringgit each. Property prices range from 150,000 to 3m ringgit.

Some flats costing between 150,000 and 200,000 ringgit are within reach of middle-income earners. This has been a sore point as speculative buying has driven prices beyond their reach.

Musa Aman, the Sabah chief minister, has called on Shareda to get its members to build cheaper flats and houses “so that more families can buy property.” He opened the exhibition.

“There is a need for more cheaper flats and houses that will let the lower income earners to have a roof over their head,” Musa said. (Insight Sabah)