Real Estate Matters | Is it time to invest in Macau again? Or should we wait another year. Or two?

Juliet Risdon is a Director of JML Property and a property investor.
Having established the company in 1994, JML Property offers Investment Property & Homes. It specializes in managing properties for owners and investors, and providing attractive and comfortable homes for tenants.

Home sales have slowed, property prices and transactions are down.
Is it the right time to pick up a good deal? Here are 10 points to consider, the first 5 this week and the last 5 next week;

1. You can get a good deal
With very few exceptions it’s a buyer’s market.
There is an argument that Car Park prices have held steady and in some cases may have risen, but for the most part its been a slow slide downwards.
Many buyers are cautious. The stock markets are falling and occasionally rising, and the high end gamblers from China are in hiding. The instability has caused uncertainty, and uncertainty is not a good for confidence.
Property prices have been moving slowly downwards for the past 18 months or so
Will prices fall further?
They certainly could, but you will never catch the absolute bottom of the market. Over the long term it really does not matter too much whether a buyer saves an extra HKD50,000 on the price of a property.

2. Housing Loans Are Cheap
As a home owner and occupant, we can get a 20 year loan for an interest rate around 2.5 percent.
These rates are still the lowest rates on record, and because of the economy it is unlikely that rates will rise significantly in the near future.
As interest goes up, the economy slows down. When inflation finally kicks in, its unlikely that we will ever see these mortgage rates again in our lifetime.
But what if we are wrong and the rate drops even lower? Then you re-finance.

3. Tax Breaks
In most countries there is a ‘capital gains’ tax. That is a tax on the ‘profit’ from the sale of your home.
For example, if you buy a property for HKD1,000,000 and sell for HKD1,500,000 then the tax would be calculated on the difference i.e. HKD500,000.
However, in Macau there is no such tax.
Furthermore, if you are paying tax overseas, depending on where you are from you may be able to reduce your personal income tax when showing the costs of purchasing the property.

4. It’s Yours
You can do what you want with it, and no-one is going to knock on your door and tell you that the rental contract is not being renewed.
You can paint, renovate, change, improve or do nothing to the property, exactly as you see fit.
You will feel better about your home if you are the one that owns it.

5. You’ll get a better home
People tend to rent the homes they don’t want to live in themselves, and instead they live in the more attractive ones.
It’s true that you could rent a property for a fraction of the cost of buying, but these are not the best properties.
By buying, you will see some of the best apartments in your price range, rather than the worst.

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