Property Market Registers RM58.58 Bln Worth Of Transactions In 2006
18/04/2007 Bernama

KUALA LUMPUR, April 18 (Bernama) -- Activities in the property market moderated last year, registering 269,600 transactions worth RM58.58 billion, the National Property Information Centre (NAPIC) said Wednesday.

Market activities went down slightly by 2.5 percent, which was better than the 5.7 percent decline posted in 2005, whilst the total value was an improvement of 4.9 percent compared with the RM56.78 billion worth of transactions registered in 2005, it said.

Most states recorded decreases in the transaction volume except Sabah (18.2 percent), Selangor (11.2 percent), Kuala Lumpur (4.8 percent), Negeri Sembilan (one percent) and Terengganu 0.6 percent.

The increase in Sabah was due to better demand for development land and residential properties in the state, at 65 percent and 27.6 percent respectively, said NAPIC in its 2006 Property Market Report released here.

Conversely, Kelantan recorded the highest decrease (26.1 percent) in transaction volume due to softening in agriculture and commercial activities.

Kedah, Perlis and Pulau Pinang also registered lower market activities as denoted by the 26 percent, 14.2 percent and 12.4 percent reductions in their respective transaction volumes.

The residential property sub-sector continued to dominate the market as indicated by its 65.4 percent contribution to the transaction volume.

This was followed by the agriculture, commercial, development land and industrial property sub-sectors respectively accounting for 18.9 percent, nine percent, 4.1 percent and 2.6 percent of the transaction volume.

Correspondingly, nearly half of the transaction value was attributed to the residential sub-sector, followed by commercial (18.8 percent), development land (13.5 percent), industrial (10 percent) and agriculture sub sector (9.4 percent).

A total of 176,277 residential transactions worth RM28.7 billion were made last year against 181,762 transaction worth RM28.41 billion in 2005.

The shop sub-sector was the prime mover of the commercial activities accounting for 60.6 percent and 51.2 percent of the volume and value of commercial transactions respectively.

The sub-sector recorded 14,669 transactions worth RM5.72 billion (2005:15,654 transactions worth RM5.97 billion). The purpose-built office sub-sector remained stable with average occupancy rate improving to 84.7 percent (2005: 84.4 percent, 2004: 82.2 percent).

Most states achieved better occupancy rates compared with 2005 except Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang and Sarawak.

Putrajaya and Perlis enjoyed a full occupancy rate, it said.

NAPIC said with an additional 80,113 square metres of new office space, the occupancy rate in Kuala Lumpur, the biggest office space provider in the country, recorded a slight decrease to 82.3 percent.

-- BERNAMA