Klang Valley’s property glut a draw for investors

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 6 — A glut of commercial real estate in the Klang Valley is creating a tenant’s market that could lure investors on the hunt for strategic opportunities and higher yields in once-overlooked Asian cities, property analysts have said.

Singapore’s Business Times (BT) reported today that 89 million square feet (sqf) of investment-grade commercial space is already available and an estimated six million sqf more will come into the market by year end, which added to a projected 13 million sqf of net lettable area (NLA) due to be completed in the next two years will see a property glut in the Klang Valley, a fifth more than what is needed.

File photo of the Petronas Twin Towers (centre) and the Kuala Lumpur Tower in Kuala Lumpur. More commercial space is becoming available in the Klang Valley. — Reuters pic

While prime property rental in Malaysia’s capital city have remained steady at about RM7.36 per square foot (psf) for four successive quarters, a price war appears inevitable in the near future as more commercial space becomes available, which will likely limit the asking price as supply of net lettable space exceeds demand and landlords fight to retain tenants, the business daily reported.

“The slower take-up rate in new buildings has not yet translated to a decline in rents, but rents may come down in the future, as landlords strive to fill up space,” the paper quoted CBRE, a leading global commercial real estate services firm, as saying.

In a “good year”, two million to three million sqf of commercial space in the city, or including the greater Kuala Lumpur area 4.5 million to 5.5 million sqf, is absorbed annually, the paper said.

However, Kuala Lumpur is seen as an budding real estate player, offering a stable market with good opportunities for opportunistic returns, and was ranked fifth city out of 22 with the best prospects in investment and development in the Asia-Pacific according to the Emerging Trends In Real Estate Asia Pacific 2013 report by the US-based Urban Land Institute and PricewaterhouseCoopers (ULI-PwC), up 17th from last year. 

The Malaysian city gained favour for being “relatively stable but with good potential for opportunistic returns,” the report said.

The ULI-PwC report added: “The long-term prospects for the commercial property market are deemed by many to be strong, due to the success of the government’s Economic Transformation Programme in drawing foreign investment.”

CH Williams Talhar & Wong’s managing director Foo Gee Jen told BT that property developers are now savvier and are offering buildings with high technology features and green building certificates to draw investors.

“Also, integrated developments that offer a live-work-learn-play environment, with facilities all within walking distance, have become increasingly popular,” he told the paper.

“With high rents, high capital values, low yields and an abundance of local capital, many international investors are struggling to see attractive investment opportunities in Asia-Pacific’s prime real estate markets [like Singapore and Hong Kong],” Richard Price, CBRE Global Investors’ Asia Pacific chief executive, was reported by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) to have said in a statement accompanying the report, which was published yesterday.

Quoting Price further, WSJ reported that the trend could in the coming year push money into once-overlooked Southeast Asian cities like Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok, as well as second-tier cities in China.

“The real-estate market is always an indication of people’s confidence in the economy [and the survey shows that] people are very positive about the Southeast Asian market,” said Choo Eng Beng, a partner and property specialist at PwC, told the influential business paper.