Since beginning of the year, quite a few of my book readers wrote to me personally and asked: Is it a good time to buy properties now? In fact it is a valid question to ask. All of is aware of the oils slump since 2015 and impacted oil and gas sectors. A lot of oil and gas projects slow down or stop, leading to slower rental demand in the regions. Worldwide stock market is crashing down as well daily etc.
There is no concrete answer to this question. My answer is “IT DEPENDS”. Why I said “It depends?” It all boils down to your knowledge in the property market and what are you buying into it. Another factor is you are having extra money to put aside and want to take this opportunity to grow it (Applying contrarian investor mentality). For those who are experience property investors, they will hunt for good deal properties during this depressed time, and trust me; you will find a lot of good deals in such time.
However, a lot of us including my book readers are just ordinary property buyers who are most likely just home buyers or beginners who just want to invest in property. They have no idea about what real good deals are and where to find them. They are fear of market oversupply, softening of rental market, economy crisis, interest rate hike etc.
What will be my take? My advice is to do your homework before jumping in to the property investment, you will find that anytime is a good time to invest into property. You have to searched for property websites such as mudah, iproperty, edgeproperty, propertyguru etc and made a table of your research which covering 5km of the area of interest. In your table should include other apartments or condominium surrounded it. Compared your whole list in term of price per square feet, includes the rental yield for each apartments/condominiums. Make appointments to do three viewing per days. You may check the market selling for the properties, or what is the last transacted price.
Lastly you have to ask yourself is it worth it? Better to know your investment goals and limits, calculate the risks before taking the decision.