KK property sector not as badly affected
Published on: Tuesday, March 01, 2016
Kota Kinabalu: The sluggish economy is reportedly hurting the property development industry in the country in terms of marketing and sales.Making this observation, Chief Executive Officer of Property365 Sdn Bhd,Timothy Hor said the whole property market in Malaysia and even in Singapore is facing challenges, at the inaugural Property365 Roadshow for developers and real estate agents at the Zara's Boutique Hotel, here, Monday.Petaling Jaya-based Property365 is a wholly-owned subsidiary of IFCA MSC Bhd.
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"It was said that KK is probably spared from this economic slowdown. But developers in the Klang Valley, Penang and Iskandar Malaysia (Johor) are all hurting as a result."The good old days of a developer launching his property one day and then selling it out by 60pc the next day are all over.Previously, all he needed to do was launch his project, take out a few print ads and maybe put a few banners on iProperty.But all this is now a thing of the past.
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"Everybody is hurting, some parts more so than others. I hope the sentiments here are not so bad because KK is a beautiful city and I think there is a lot of opportunity for growth. But the other side of the coin is that the 'big boys' (like Mah Sing Group and Setia which is Malaysia's leading property developer) are also coming to Sabah, so there is a lot of competition as well," Hor told the participants.According to him, 2016 has been touted as a year of "balanced units" in West Malaysia, meaning, the "overhang" of new properties in the market. "That is tagged to be about 60pc," he said.
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Hor later told Daily Express that the general sentiment is that Sabah is doing slightly better, attributing this to the pricing and potential investors. "But actually it is not cheap because in some places like Imago Shopping Mall, commercial property for sale is priced at between RM800 and RM900 per square foot (comparable with that of Mont Kiara properties in Kuala Lumpur)," he said.On the nationwide roadshow, the CEO said it was being conducted on the premise that IFCA (parent company) has been serving the property development industry for so long.In his presentation, Hor said: "IFCA has been serving developers for almost 30 years in respect of normal transactional processing. For IFCA to just help the developers in this area after a sales has been made, is not going to add a lot of value. If the developers don't sell their properties, what's the need for IFCA Software? "At the end of the day, as with all businesses, it boils down to helping them (developers) sell. You have a product and the product is your property. The consumer is your end-goal, and you are trying to fundamentally reach the right consumer to buy your property."IFCA has never been in the business of actually helping developers sell their properties, so we (Property365) are moving into that realm. We realise that we cannot add value to our customers, in particular the developers, unless we help sell their properties. That is a very bold statement and you may wonder whether it is logically possible."While assuring that the mission of Property365 24/7 is to help developers selI their properties faster, better and smarter, Hor said he did not want to give the impression that the company has the silver bullet."But at least, that gives you an idea of why we are creating Property 356 24/7 as a platform for the developer's internal sales team and external appointed agents," he added.Towards meeting its first core proposition (that is, to help developers sell their properties faster, better and smarter), Property365 undertook to create an agent platform. "This is because in other parts of Malaysia, some developers do not only have their internal sales team but also appointed agents, especially when times get tough. When they sell the first 60pc and then cannot sell the last 40pc, they will call all the agents in town."In this regard, Hor said, Property365 24/7 was extending its "back end" to create a digital or e-Sales Gallery for developers, irrespective of whether it is for pre-launches, launches, post-launches or balanced units (overhang).He added : "Regardless of what developers have, in terms of their inventory, we are creating an ecosystem, a digital space, so that all their projects can be put in one place and accessible 24X7X365."Which means they can sell their units concurrently and collaboratively and use online reservations. The beauty of it is that the developers can now leverage on thousands of agents nationwide to market and sell their projects nationally, regionally and even globally."Calling it a property portal, he said its uniqueness is that unit information, unit availability and the pricing is real-time. "If you are using our Property 356 24/7 Platform, there is no issue of double booking. It is an e-Sales Gallery open 24X7X365 with real-time project information and unit availability where you can actually do registration or make online reservations. In addition to the gallery, the Digital Sales Kit as an online project briefing solution is accessible to agents anytime anywhere, on any device."Quoting national statistics, Hor said there are 1,551 agencies and 14,763 real estate agents, of whom 2,462 are licensed-holders."Each real estate agent must be licensed while a real estate negotiator is required to use a rent licence (under the agent's licence). We have negotiators because there are not enough real estate agents on the ground to cover the market."The regulations stipulate that for one licence, the holder is eligible to have 30 negotiators. So if we times 2462 licences by 30, the maximum number of real estate negotiators with a rent licence is only about that number (73,860)," he pointed out.With this Property 356 Platform, the CEO contended that developers in Sabah can now leverage on the thousands of agents (not only in the State but throughout Malaysia) to market their properties in the Klang Valley, Penang or Johor Baru "because we are going to create an agent platform where all the agents in the country are going to be our members and they can sell for developers anytime, anywhere, on any device."The second core proposition is provision of e-Project Marketing for developers who want to leverage on the network and technology embraced by Property 365 24/7 to sell any of their products (example, commercial units) in the Peninsula. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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