The Cost of Owning a House

I met my other half on a rainy day of July, 2012 at Tebrau City, Johore Bahru. We immediately fell in love and I married her last year on the second week after Eidul Fitr festival. I was working at my hometown at Kuala Lumpur while she had to stay at Johore Bahru as her application to transfer to my place was not entertained. We had to live separately for a period before I finally decided to apply for a job at Johore Bahru so we can start living together.

Like many other Johore Bahru citizens especially the young couples like me and my wife, the greatest challenge that we had to face to start a family are the unreasonable high cost for property ownership. When I first met my wife, the price of a medium cost comfortable terrace house at Skudai is around MYR70k more or less. I came back after two years only to find out the same type of house cost three times the former price. Place nearer to Nusajaya like Lim Kit Siang's Gelang Patah and Bukit Indah would be 500% increase. Even my company, which are fully owned by government sells no unit less than MYR million.

The same calculation applied for rental. Back then, with MYR300 you get a two storey terrace house. Now that price can only cover to rent a common room. Some landlord who still leasing their property at the old price slowly getting rid of their tenant with lame excuses like, "I have sold the house" or "I want to move in." Those were true stories, happened to my wife's former housemates, and two of my friends.

It is no secret the reason for the price hike. When I roam from Bukit Indah to Skudai, many billboards, advertisement showed non citizen telephone number. Since 2008, the starting year of the 2nd World Great Recession that saw US economy crumbles, while the government of ours had to start cutting down all subsidy program, introducing new type of taxes, and raising all the existing, many middle income citizen saw property investment as a way out from the financial depression. These humble "ROI cash-flow" player actually gave no or very little threat to the properties market. The problem came when more and more high income greedier citizen - both existing millionaires and the newly riches of property investors, join the game with "Capital Gain" technique in large scale. They buy all new properties using proxies even before the launching date, denying common citizen opportunity to buy it except from them, after they had greedily speculate the price as much higher than actual market value. Now with more player from the outside, who comes with greater capital, there is no way we would expect the situation will be better.

On developer part, the only thing they care about is the selling of their properties. The country's loose policy for property ownership allows the developer to target their market to the investors. Very few developers are willing to perform their moral duty to the society by developing affordable houses for the middle and lower income. When the government finally decided to be stricter in their policy, it was already too late. Medium terrace house now is selling at MYR900k.

Now according to the latest salaries report by Jobstreet.com portal, the average salaries for a junior executive is only MYR2900 or maximum is MYR3500. Immediately, we would realize that the current property market today is totally out of their league. With stricter facilities application introduce by National Bank since 2012, 2013 and 2014, can their salary meet the requirement? The last resort for my generation might only be the very limited government funded affordable houses.