Property: Darkest before dawn
WHAT DEVELOPERS SHOULD DO
Next question to all property owners and agents, “what the government and developers should do to revive the property market ?”
They agreed that the government should creating conducive political enviroment, it can attract more investors to come and invest in Indonesia and it can also encourage people who actually having a money to “dare” buy a property. They expect lending rates to be lowered again and hope banks will comply with it, because there is a tendency lending rates fell at a slower pace than the central bank’s move, in contrast to when central bank raise the interest rates, banks very quickly to followed the same steps. Regarding tax, they want cheaper property transaction too from current level 2,5-5%, plus they also hope goverment will ease more regulation regarding property ownership by foreigners.
Meanwhile, their expectations for the developers is to hit a brake in terms of producing new property supply, especially properties that are cheaper and smaller than the old ones, because this kind of property would squeeze price of secondary property which usually higher since it has larger and bigger size.
We have to admit the low-cost housing (priced under 1 Billion) currently enjoyed a good times. Why ? because although this kind of houses has a small size, it is affordable by most new property buyer such as a fresh graduate who just started working or newly married couples.
Take the example at one house located in a cluster at Serpong which currently priced in the range of IDR 1 to 1.1 billion with a 48m2 land size and 63m2 building, when we did a survey there, it appeared many houses either did not have occupants / are for sale, or the owner are just yet returned to home.
We have recorded video so you can see and you be the judge, not me : link
For prospective buyers who previously did not get a chance in a lucky draw during the boom year, they should be happy now since they don’t need to fight with a lot of people to buy a property at Serpong.
Yet I tried to put my foot in developers’ shoes too, they need a revenue since they have to pay a lot of costs each year, that’s why it’s quite impossible to expect they would stop flooding a new property projects. They will keep launched a projects they thought is suitable for current market condition.’
Furthermore, property owners also hope the developers can refrain from raising maintenance, cleanliness, and security costs, it will at least alleviate property owner’s financial burden. You can see more pictures we taken when we did the observation on the next page.