In the first half of 2023, Malaysia’s property market has taken a step back and recorded a total of 184,140 transactions, a slight decline of 2.1%, but inched upwards in value by 1.1%, having a total of RM85.37 billion from the previous year. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic and the rising interest rates, Malaysia’s property market is still relatively strong. With this trend in play, it shows that Malaysia’s property market is becoming more global and selective.
The residential sub-sector contributed the most to the overall property market in terms of both volume and value transactions, accounting for 62.4% of volume and 52.5% of value. The agriculture sub-sector was the second-largest contributor to transaction volume, with a share of 19.8%, followed by commercial (9.6%), development land and others (6.2%) and industrial (2.0%).
However, the commercial sub-sector was the second-largest contributor to transaction value, accounting for 19.6%, followed by the industrial sub-sector (12.8%), agriculture sub-sector (8.3%), and development land and others (6.8%).
Considering the corresponding period in the previous year, the performance of the sectoral market activity has plateaued with residential and agriculture, including the industrial sub-sector experiencing a slowdown with a decline of 1%, 12.4% and 2.5%, respectively, from the previous year.
However, the commercial and development land sub-sectors showed signs of improvement, recording 17,602 and 11,383 transactions, respectively, an increase of 16% and 1.4% since the first half of 2022.
In light of the value of the transaction, both sector – residential and agriculture sector also shows a slight decline, recording a difference of 1.8% and 17.7%, respectively, whereas commercial, industrial and the development land sub-sector has rebounded and showed an increase by 19.5% (RM2.74 billion), 1.8% (RM190 million) and 7.3% (RM400 million) correspondingly.
The different trends in the residential, agricultural, commercial, industrial, and development land sub-sectors suggest that the property market is becoming more diversified. While the residential and agricultural sectors are declining, the commercial, industrial, and development land sub-sectors are performing positively, suggesting that businesses are still investing and growing.
