SEBERANG PERAI, March 4 — The double-storey link homes shaping up amid Batu Kawan’s oil palms will fetch million ringgit price tags in 10 years, property firm Henry Butcher has predicted.
Budget-conscious home buyers, unable to afford houses on the island, have steadily driven up the price of property on the mainland in recent years, in anticipation of Penang’s second bridge at Batu Kawan, which opened last week.
“New residential double storey terrace houses in Batu Kawan are now being priced at RM400,000 per unit and is set to increase steadily, to reach RM500,000 in three years’ time; and 10 years from now, a unit could cost about RM1 million,” said Fook Tone Huat, an associate director at Henry Butcher Malaysia’s Seberang Perai office.
Home prices in and around Batu Kawan are expected to skyrocket further once Swedish furniture retail giant Ikea opens a planned store there in 2020.
“If you want to buy a home in Seberang Perai, the best time is now before prices climb over the next decade due to the planned developments in Batu Kawan,” Fook told a news conference here today.
Outside of Batu Kawan, he said double-storey terrace houses on the mainland were currently priced between RM200,000 and RM500,000, compared to similar houses on the island that cost upwards of RM500,000.
As such, the total value of transaction for development land on the mainland has risen, Fook noted.
The price per square foot (psf) has also shot up; 30 acres of land in Batu Kawan was sold recently at RM50 psf, 50 acres in Bukit Tambun (at RM40 psf), 76 acres in Jawi (at RM12.80 psf), and a parcel of land in Jalan Ong Yi How in Butterworth went for a whopping RM115 psf, Fook said.
“These ventures by major developers, especially in the southern Seberang Perai, will further boost the mainland with more new developments coming up,” he said, and attributed it to the opening of the bridge linking Batu Kawan and Batu Maung, an industrial zone on the island close to the Penang International Airport.
The boom will be seen in five main areas, Fook said, listing Alma, Bukit Mertajam, Batu Kawan, Simpang Ampat and Jalan Baru in Perai.
But other areas will also enjoy the spillover effects, he added, and named Byram and Changkat in Nibong Tebal as future growth zones.
“Another future growth area to take note of will be the Royal Malaysian Air Force Base area in Teluk Ayer Tawar which is in the vicinity of where the proposed undersea tunnel is supposed to link the island to the northern side on the mainland,” he said.
Penang is planning a 7.2km long undersea tunnel as its third link to the mainland, connecting island tourist hotspot Gurney Drive and Bagan Ajam on the mainland north.
Fook also predicted that the total volume of transactions, or property sales, will taper this year due to cooling measures introduced by the central bank and the federal and state governments to prevent prices spiralling out of control.
“This doesn’t mean property prices will decline too but it will stabilise while the prices of new launches will remain cautiously high,” he said.
Instead, he foresees prices of landed residential property on the mainland now priced under RM500,000 will rise about 10 per cent, held in check by the government policies that include the Real Property Gains Tax (RPGT) now at 30 per cent, the removal of the Developer Interest Bearing Scheme (DIBS), and Penang’s new state housing policy on the resale of low- and medium-cost housing units.
