Property: Darkest before dawn
LIFE OF AN AGENT
Life as a property broker must be very pleasant when property market was booming, my mother told me that all her friends who work as a property agent often travelled to Japan, South Korea, Europe, or even US (either by their own cost or bonus from property developers). They also bought a new car, the best one could even afford bought a house, apartment, or shophouses. They keep telling everybody that property is the best investment you can have !, stocks is a form of gambling for them and could send people to bankruptcy, while property prices keep going up & up & up just like coldplay song.
Now, many of them have to cut down their holiday budget. They are no longer replacing their gadget with the new ones every 3-6 months and no longer go to Europe – US for a holiday trip. Life is tough now !
Wife who work as property agent is in a better situation, since they can still depend on husband income as an employee. But, for a husband who work as a property agent, that’s an uphill battle. Surprisingly, I heard from our agent respondents that in 2012-2014, many husbands resigned from their secular job to work with their wife as a property agent (because their wife is earned more as a property agent), now they are in a trouble. No deal, No Money. can still close around five deals a month, but …when property market was booming, and suffered …
Some prominent agents can still close around 5 deals a month, but it’s much much lower than when property market was booming where they can closed around 20-25 deals every months. Yet, there are also many agents who entered when the property market was booming, and suffered because they have yet to closed a deal in the last 12 months (1 year) !, now they need to find another job to keep their kitchen alive so they open a restaurant or become a driver for UBER, GRAB, or GOJEK/GOCAR. The last one is true, I once used a GO-CAR service and the driver gave me his property agent name card, telling me to contact him, in case I wanna buy a property.
Here is my 30 mins interview with a people who live at Serpong who is now working as an online taxi driver. He has a lot of friends and family whom bought a property assets at Serpong, and now, his wife also working as a property agent. You have to listen to this interview so you can know what happened including how buyer behaviours at current stage.
Not only agents and owners who deal with sluggish property market. Construction workers also complained that their future is now less certain with less construction, even some property projects got postponed because a weak demand. While the owner of the material store noted that their monthly sales has decreased by 30-50%, especially tile and cement, they cited lower number of owners who renovated house as a main reason why their sales declining.
TAX AMNESTY
We asked all property owners and agents who represent out respondents for this report.
“Whether tax amnesty program has managed to boost the performance of property sales at Serpong?”
Most property owners said they were quite relieved with the tax amnesty program, because they can’t sleep and eat when the government aggressively pursue tax revenue back in 2015. Before 2014-2015, they still feel safe from the taxman since they only hold a PPJB certificate (buyer sellers covenant / agreement) from developer. They fear the taxman will find out their property ownership and will fine them, most of them said “yes I may cheat on my tax report, but hey I owned a property asset that still stuck and Iccouldn’t imagine pay a big fine !, *sigh”.
While all property agents hoping their life would be better after the tax amnesty. In fact, some say in September and October 2016, the number of deals started to improve, but heated political condition in November 2016, brought their deals declined once again. Potential buyers worry that if there is chaos then property assets is the hardest (illiquid) asset to sell, plus the price usually would fall severely.
Yep, valid argument !, politic condition play an important role before you invest in any risky asset. Again, we can not blame the property developers and it’s management since they have done everything they could to revive property industry. For example “
PT Bumi Serpong Damai Tbk conducted price amnesty program by giving away 15-20% discount for their property prices.
Another developer here guarantees a 26% price increase for the next 2 years if people bought a plot of land which located in their clusters, the developers are ready to buy back the land from buyers if the price does not go up 26% in the next 2 years.
as well as PT. Summarecon Agung, Tbk who has entered into partnership with banks to provide low loans rate (5.99% for 3 years) for their latest project Serpong M-Town. Not only in Serpong, Summarecon even gives a promo where you can do a 24 installments payment for your 20% down payment !!!! for their project in Karawang.
There is also a property developer who will pay your tax amnesty fine subjected to the property asset that you buy from them, wow just wow.
In the golden age of the property a few years ago, you will not find a promo like this.