Residential property overhang improves but challenges remain for office and retail sectors, says Ahmad Maslan

• “Almost 58% of the overhang was condominiums and apartments. In terms of the price range, almost half of these properties cost more than RM500,000 per unit,” Deputy Finance Minister I Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan said in his speech at the launch of the National Property Information Centre's (Napic) property market report on Thursday.

KAJANG (Sept 14): Malaysia's residential property overhang recorded an improvement, with a total of 28,286 overhang units worth RM18.3 billion recorded in the first half of 2023 (1H2023), down by 5.3% in volume and 0.6% in value against the same period last year.

Of the 28,286 units, Johor continued to have the highest number with 4,717 units, followed by Selangor with 4,307 units, said Deputy Finance Minister I Datuk Seri Ahmad Maslan. (pictured)

“Almost 58% of the overhang was condominiums and apartments. In terms of the price range, almost half of these properties cost more than RM500,000 per unit,” Ahmad said in his speech at the launch of the National Property Information Centre's (Napic) property market report on Thursday.

The deputy finance minister also stated that there were 22,497 overhanging units of serviced apartments worth RM19.13 billion in 1H2023, down by 6.2% in volume and 5.2% in value compared to the same period a year earlier.

Meanwhile, the outlook for the office sector remains challenging due to high vacancy rates. Although occupancy rates have improved, there is still a significant amount of unoccupied office space in the country, indicating an imbalance between supply and demand in the market, according to Ahmad.

He said the average occupancy rate of offices was 72.4%, up from 70.8% in 1H2022. Despite the higher occupancy rate, there was 5.06 million sq m of vacant office space, more than half of which was in Kuala Lumpur.

As for the retail sector, he said the country had more than 17.4 million sq m of commercial space available, with only 4.08 million sq m occupied. The occupancy rate, however, increased from 75.7% to 76.6%.

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