Drawing up a picture of the ideal Malaysian home

Owning a home is a common goal shared by many Malaysians. But what constitutes an ideal home? Although it is a concept that is subjective to the individual, Lafarge Malaysia and EdgeProp.my have initiated the Lafarge-EdgeProp MYHOME survey to find out what the majority of Malaysians want in a home.

This nationwide project does not stop just at the survey and results analysis. The input will be the basis for the home designs that would be built by Malaysia’s award-winning developer S P Setia Bhd. This project follows TheEdgeProperty.com-Lafarge Happiness in the City Index 2017 that measured the happiness level of urban dwellers in major Malaysian cities.

* A home is not just a roof over our heads

This year, the Lafarge-EdgeProp MYHOME survey that ran for almost two months from Feb 28 to April 15, managed to garner almost 14,000 respondents. Here are the results.

So, what do Malaysians really want?

In conclusion, most Malaysians aspire to live in a moderate terraced home or townhouse with a nice living room and a garden, that they can own with a budget of between RM400,000 to RM600,000. The landed property should be located in a gated residential area with amenities such as jogging trails, children’s playground and swimming pool.

For most Malaysians, an ideal home should be in the ideal size of 1,000 sq ft to 1,999 sq ft with three bedrooms or more and three bathrooms or more. The ambiance of the home would be “earthy or natural” complemented with wood or marble floorings, partially furnished with good quality appliances. It should offer good ventilation, security and spaciousness — the top three attributes that most Malaysians pay attention to when it comes to choosing an ideal home.

Malaysians also hope their ideal home could be located in a convenient location with good security and surrounded by natural green spaces.

So, now that we know what most Malaysians want in their ideal home, the question is, are we asking for too much? Are we being realistic?

Who are the respondents?

More than half of the respondents are below the age of 35, 19% of them are aged between 36 and 45 years old, 7.1% are between 46 and 55, while the remaining 6% are evenly split between those aged 55 years and above and those less than 18 years old.

Most respondents reside in the Klang Valley – with the majority from Selangor (42%), followed by Kuala Lumpur (17.5%), Johor (about 7.1%) and Perak (6.8%).

Living that ideal lifestyle

Favourite spaces

Living in an ideal home offers the possibility of an ideal lifestyle. According to the survey respondents, the living room (42.3%) is the most important space in a home, followed by the bedroom (31.3%), the kitchen (21.2%) and the bathroom (5.1%).

Things that matter

Malaysians are known for their love for food, and although the kitchen is not chosen as the most important space in a home, a whopping 80.2% of respondents view cooking for themselves or family members as the most important activity at home.Certainly, a home continues to be seen as a place where families can spend time together as 71.5% view the home as a good place for bonding with the family. It is also considered an individual’s sanctuary and a place for a person to spend some quality time with oneself (69.4%).

Community living

Although slightly more than half of the respondents prefer to have at least two cars in the house, 56.5% of them think that it is still important for their homes to be located near to public transportation such as Mass Rapid Transit/Light Rail Transit (56.5%) stations. They would also like to be near schools (55%) and near to eateries such as restaurants or cafes 53.8%. These amenities are followed closely by a liking for green spaces such as parks as 50.4% of the respondents prefer to live near parks.

Can you afford a mortgage?

Buying a home is usually the biggest investment or purchase we will ever make in our lives and for most people, a loan is crucial to a home purchase. In the
Malaysian home loan market, there are a slew of products that homebuyers could consider – conventional home loans, flexi home loans and Islamic home loans.

Notably, 35.3% of respondents prefer to take up an Islamic loan and 32.7% would go for a flexi home loan while 9.8% would choose conventional home loans.

Surprisingly, about 18.9% don’t really care about the type of housing loan that they take on. Only 3.3% note that they don’t need a mortgage.

With all being said, the fact is that not every loan application is approved or approved with the desired financing margin, leading to a gap between the upfront payment and the loan amount.

As part of their Plan B, 38.6% of respondents would choose to rent first before trying to apply for a home loan again, while 37.6% will get a differential sum loan to bridge the gap. Almost a quarter of them (23.9% of respondents) however, will forget about getting a home altogether.

Money matters

About 61% of respondents have an annual household income of less than RM100,000 while almost a quarter (24.4%) earn between RM100,000 and RM200,000.

Overall, Malaysians seem to be able to afford homes of below RM600,000 as about 40.1% of the respondents say they have an average budget of RM400,000 to RM600,000 followed closely with 39.1% with less than RM400,000, to purchase their ideal home. The rest are willing to fork out above RM600,000.

The specifics

Landed trump high-rise homes

Although house prices are generally on the rise in the country, many respondents still hope to have a landed home, specifically terraced home/townhouse (35%), while the rest choose semi-detached (21.6%) and detached/bungalow (25.5%). Only about 17.8% choose a non-landed home namely condominium or apartment.

Under one roof

On the number of people they expect to be living under one roof in their ideal home, most respondents or 63.6% envision three to five people to make up the household. About 16.7% indicate one or two persons, while 19.7% expect to live with six or more people in their ideal home.

Attributes

Let’s look at the attributes of a home that Malaysians want. Security is a major priority to many aspiring and existing homeowners as 59.8% respondents would like their ideal homes to be located in a gated community with amenities, while 27.5% prefer to live in a gated community without amenities. Only 12.8% choose to live in an open or public community.

Interestingly, in the era of convenience, more than half of the respondents (60.2%) prefer to live in a fully residential development while the rest would like to live in integrated or mixed developments that offer commercial/retail segments such as a mall.

Do we want smaller homes?

Based on the results, the ideal built-up size would be in the range of the 1,000 sq ft to 1,999 sq ft, as chosen by 45.5% of respondents, seemingly “not too big , not too small”. About 24.1% of respondents prefer larger built-ups of between 2,000 sq ft and 3,000 sq ft while 9.1% opt for 3,000 sq ft. Only 8.7% choose small built-ups of less than 1,000 sq ft.

Interestingly, 12.6% of the respondents say they don’t really care about the size of a home, as long as it fits their household and other needs.

On the number of rooms, it is clear that three bedrooms or more will only be sufficient for most Malaysians as indicated by 85.8% of respondents. As for bathrooms, 59% would like to have three bathrooms or more while 38.9% think that two bathrooms would be sufficient.

Slightly more than half (53.2%) say they will have two cars in the house while 22.2% will have three cars, and 8.9% will have four or more. About 14.4% will have only one car while a mere 1.4% say they will have no car.

This story first appeared in EdgeProp.my pullout on May 18, 2018. Download EdgeProp.my pullout here for free.