IN KUALA LUMPUR

Property prices in Malaysia are too high.

This is the sentiment expressed by the majority of Malaysians surveyed by top property website iProperty.com.

Out of a total of 110 respondents in a first survey, 84.5 per cent felt there was a property surplus.

In a second poll, 39 per cent of 100 respondents said they might buy properties but would wait for prices to fall further. Only 27 per cent felt it is a good time for bargain hunting.

In a third survey of 275 respondents, 58.9 per cent felt that current asking prices were unrealistic.

The results of the three separate polls, undertaken between February 11 and April 14 this year also showed similar results when conducted in Singapore and Hong Kong.

While I can't speak for Singapore nor Hong Kong, I can vouch for the fact that property prices here do seem unrealistically high. Speaking purely from a consumer's point of view, of course.  And I don't feel that this is something new either.

Prices for properties in KL’s most prestigious and desirable locations like Damansara Heights, U-Thant-Ampang, Kenny Hills, Bangsar and in recent years, Mont Kiara – a high-rise luxury condominium enclave on the city fringe - have always been stable and continue to perform well even during economic downturns.

While I was house-hunting just over a year ago, the market was already softening, but I noticed that house agents and home owners were still loathe to adjust their asking prices in tandem with the lack of demand, even in less prestigious addresses.

Case in point. Among the houses I viewed was one 30-year-old semi-detached house in the Taman Tun Dr Ismail suburb. While somewhat upmarket, it was not quite in the same league as Damansara Heights et al, so I could still fantasise about buying a nice bit of property with a decent-sized garden there. Maybe.

The owner's asking price was a little bit higher than what I was willing to pay. Plus the bathrooms desperately needed re-doing and there were some leaks in the ceiling. But the owner, a businessman, was not ready to lower his price. I hear that the house is still on the market today.

OK, so that was before the global economic crisis sparked by the credit crunch fiasco late last year.

But even in late-December last year, property prices still had not fallen by much, with many house buyers prepared to sit it out until prices plunged further. It would seem they are still sitting it out, five months down the road.

A young executive who has been looking for a landed property in KL and neighbouring Selangor for the past few weeks says she feels prices are indeed too high.

"The trouble is that prices have gone down but some house owners still think they can sell their properties at prices at levels before the economic crisis," she complained.

One owner wanted to sell an unrenovated single storey terrace house in the well-established Petaling Jaya suburb at RM410,000 (S$169,693), even though the potential house buyer thought it was only worth about RM300,000. "She is still waiting and no one is interested," she said.

So it would seem that while buyers are waiting for house prices to fall, home owners  are waiting for the one buyer that is willing to pay the price that they are asking for. And they don't seem to mind waiting for one or two years.

While this may seem like a lose-lose chicken and egg sort of scenario, iProperty.com executive chairman Patrick Grove is more optimistic.

"Sellers will eventually lower asking prices when properties have been on the market for too long and the more desperate sellers will definitely do so to realise case for other needs," he said.

"On top of that, there is a huge supply coming onto the market and this will put downward pressure on property prices. Bargain hunters will definitely snap up good deals during this period."

Some industry players however say that from the investors’ point of view, this shows that the property market here is solid.

"For example, there has been no change in the price of terrace houses in Petaling Jaya from before the economic crisis," said property consultant Ho Chin Soon.

He reckons it is still a good time for Malaysians to buy property and that prices could go up.

"During tough times,  investors normally see mountains and cliffs. But there are only undulating hills in Malaysia,’ he said.