The iProperty.com Group, Asia’s leading network of property portals and owner of Malaysia’s No. 1 property and real estate website, is pleased to share Part 2 of the Asia Property Trends Survey 2007, which reveals the investment behaviour of local property buyers. Part 1 of the results, which was released earlier this month, focussed on foreign investors of Malaysian property.

iProperty.com’s survey reveals Malaysians to be keen property purchasers, who favour landed properties, over high-rise developments. Findings also indicate that locals are more inclined towards obtaining maximum margins of financing.

The average iProperty.com Malaysian survey respondent is highly educated (69 per cent have a Bachelor’s degree or higher level of education), a professional or senior executive (60 per cent) and has an annual income of at least US$20,000 / RM76,000 (53 per cent).

Compared to most foreign buyers who have a preference for luxury condominiums, Malaysian respondents strongly favour landed properties, with 59 per cent and 53 per cent voting for completed and newly launched landed properties respectively. Interestingly, this corresponds with their primary attraction to property investment cited: potential capital appreciation gains (62 per cent). It is a widely known fact that landed properties, as compared to high-rise apartments; tend to perform better in terms of long-term capital appreciation.

The survey findings clearly indicated that Malaysians are ardent property purchasers on an active lookout for investment opportunities, with a significant 88 per cent expressing that they have the intention of purchasing property within the next 12 months. Forty-eight per cent divulged they have purchased at least one property over the past 24 months, with 10 per cent having purchased two or more.

An overwhelming 77 per cent of respondents stated that they plan to fund their property acquisitions with loans that give them margins of financing of between 80 per cent to 100 per cent.

Fifty-seven per cent replied that `Location’ was the most important factor they consider in hunting for a viable property, with 36 per cent ranking `Price’ as the second most important factor. In this context, both Malaysian and foreign buyers agree on the factors of `Location’ and `Price', in identical order of importance. 

Patrick Grove, executive chairman of the iProperty.com Group said: “We now have a good reason to believe that Malaysia has a property-investing culture with a lot of domestic demand. Property values have been rising consistently over the years, and will continue to do so as the country develops. We are pleased to note that many savvy Malaysians recognise the attractiveness of the local property market and are eager to take advantage of the significant potential upside.”

“It is also interesting to discover that Malaysians still prefer to invest in landed property compared to their foreign counterparts, who prefer high-rise properties,” he added.

The iProperty.com Asia Property Trends Survey aims to reveal trends among Asian property buyers; including the key motivations for purchasing property, the types of property they are interested in, the countries they are keen on, their budgets, and how they go about conducting their property search and property research methodologies.  This Survey was conducted online from 15 November to 31 December 2007, with results yielded from 2,066 respondents.