This article first appeared in City & Country, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on October 30, 2023 - November 5, 2023
The latest report by the National Property Information Centre (Napic) shows that in the second quarter of this year, the property market in Sabah experienced a decline of 16.28% in volume and 13.47% in value compared with 2Q2022. There were 1,198 transactions valued at RM479.95 million during the quarter.
According to Rahim & Co regional manager (Sabah) Max Sylver Sintia when presenting The Edge/Rahim & Co Kota Kinabalu Housing Property Monitor 2Q2023, the drop was most likely due to the low number of newly launched residential properties in 1H2023 compared with 1H2022.
“Napic recorded 106 units of new residential unit launches in 1H2023 compared with 1,725 units in 1H2022. This indicates a contraction of 93.86% in newly launched residential units in Sabah, when comparing 1H2023 and 1H2022,” says Max.
“Despite the decline in volume and value of transactions in the primary market during the quarter under review, the secondary market remained stable, with all of the samples in the monitor for terraced houses recording year-on-year (y-o-y) growth in value, from 1.08% to 4.17%. For high-rise properties, only two samples did not record y-o-y growth, with the rest increasing from 0.8% to 4.3% y-o-y.”
Max highlights that in 2Q2023, properties priced below RM300,000 formed the bulk of transactions in the state with 613 transactions. These accounted for 51.17% of the total volume of transactions and were valued at RM113.427 million, equivalent to 23.63% of the total value of transactions of residential properties in Sabah during the quarter.
