IProperty sees growing demand for larger properties
KUCHING: With a burgeoning population of more than 30 million, data from property website iProperty.com Malaysia revealed that the houses in the country are getting larger.
The data, collected and tabulated by iPropertyIQ, the companies big data solutions that simplify information access and discovery, revealed that people are now living in homes that are about 67 per cent larger than it used to be 15 years ago.
“iPropertyIQ gives real estate professionals simplified access to how trends and consumer behavior in relation to the property market.
"With the data, they are able to discover new insights, predict outcomes in real time, and develop developments that caters to the needs of property buyers,” explained Georg Chmiel, chief executive officer of the iProperty Group.
He added that the data from iPropertyIQ is obtained from a combination of data from iProperty.com Malaysia and from Brickz.com.
ThelatestfindingsbyiPropertyIQ revealed that houses that are being bought and sold today had an average size of 1,900 square feet (sq ft).
“It was interesting to note that in the 1990s, when the population was at 18 million, houses used to average at 1,150 sq ft. In just a span of 26 years, property sizes have increased by 750 sq ft.
“Even though affordability continues to remain a key concern, Malaysians are looking for larger homes and the findings also showed that terrace houses are also getting more popular.
"Towards 2011, people had already begun looking towards terrace houses due to affordability,” shared Chmiel.
He added that at the same time semi-D’s market share faced the opposite reaction.
"The market share for semiD’s remained below 25 per cent as popularity for terrace houses continued to stay above 75 per cent.
“Aside from homes getting bigger and demand for terrace house growing, the data also revealed that since 2001, houses with four bedrooms or more has gained grounds from houses with two rooms or less. The research showed that having more rooms in a house is also cost effective when families live in together.”
He concluded saying that houses with three rooms continues to be the de facto choice of house to purchase by property buyers and investors.