EXPERT’S COMMENT
WHAT GST DOES TO THE MARKET? “I will advise investors to ensure they have a long investment horizon of at least 5 years, so to minimise the effect of RPGT. Apart KEVIN NEOH from this, it is important for investors to have holding power so that they can ride out any ups and downs of the market and can withstand shock such as when having troubles finding tenants. Investors should Financial Planner also be mindful about having proper asset allocations done for their personal investment portfolio that is not only exposed to real VKA Wealth Planners Sdn Bhd estate only. Your personal financial situation may need to have asset allocation mixture of paper asset such as stocks, bonds, real assets like property, gold etc.”
“I think property developers will be affected by the GST as they will have to add up the price of the new properties. The house buyers will BOWIE TAN not have to pay GST for new properties when they purchase it, but the developers will try to build additional costs for the commercial Director of Core ones. Commercial property buyers will likely be affected as they have Investors to fork out more money. But I anticipated that in 2 years’ time, people will adapt to it, eventually.”
“There will be certain difficulties for mixed development. As for residential properties, investors don’t need to worry so much unlike those who are investing in commercial properties because residential housing is actually exempted from GST. Property investors in any Managing way have to absorb all the difficulties, unfortunately. In general, Director of GST is a good way to mend leakages in the current consumption tax Tax and Malaysia collection and can result in extra profits.”
RENUKA BHUPALAN
FAIZUL RIDZUAN Author and high rise property investment expert
YAP SHIN SIANG Partner of YYC Advisory
“Immediate impact will be an increase in selling prices for primary market properties. Developers will have to factor GST for all their developments since Q4 2013, hence we’ve noticed an increase of property prices for all launches this year. I don’t think we can generalise that all commercial property price will rise due to this impending GST, unless you are referring to only the primary market. My advice to property investors is to stick to our long term investment objective and GST should be viewed as a non-event. They can also find better values in the sub-sale market where the impact of GST won’t be felt as much.”
“In my opinion, it is good and necessary for Malaysia to have GST implementation because it is one of the measures for the government to overhaul the financial system of the country to find new sources of revenue and to improve the efficiency of tax collection, besides reducing corruption and helping to reduce waste. As for investors, residential are exempted from GST whereas commercial are chargeable.”
66 AUGUST 2014 www.propertyinsight.com.my
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