2010 EVENTS

Upcoming Events 2010

Of course, you can always buy a book on how to sell a property. You could also try talking to people who are in the business. You could join online forums, read websites on the matter, and join social networks. To make things easier for you, you can start with these property selling tips.

Checking Out the Property and the Housing Market

Before you actually sell any property, you should first check out the housing market. You can do this by logging in the Internet or you can actually approach people who know the trend. If you are in the business though of flipping properties, you should definitely learn how to study the market. Together with checking out the trend, you should also know the current property valuations. It would be best if you could check around. This would give you an idea the reasonable pricing should be. Pricing your property can be a little bit tricky if you don’t know what the current rates are. You could either be missing out on a profit or on a sale depending on your price.

Learning How to Market the Property

If you’re selling the property yourself and you’re not selling it through an agent, you definitely should learn how to market the property. You will be entirely responsible for marketing the house or the property. You will also organize viewings for prospective buyers.

You could also try to market your property online. There are agents who specialize in marketing real properties online. But if your business is buying and selling property, it is expected that you should have your own business website.

You could use your website then to sell properties that you have. This could save you a lot of advertising fees. Also, most buyers even in your area would search the Internet for properties and they could most likely end up in your website. You could even then start to sell the property online. You could post pictures of the property to entice prospective buyers to actually contact you about the property.

Do Not Settle but Learn to Negotiate

It could be tempting to avoid the hassle of negotiating. It is also tempting to just agree with the quoted fee just so you wouldn’t lose a client. However, do not always end up agreeing without having had negotiated first.

Clean Up the Property

No, you cannot possibly expect to sell a property that is not even remotely presentable. It is important that you dress up or clean up the property you’re trying to sell. It is very important that you create the right impression. You could pain the front door, plan some flowers and trim the back hedges.

Starting out as a nail artist, Xinyi came across folk art painting while looking for another art skill to branch out with, “It would give me the ability to turn what I see or fancy in a physical product, into reality” said Xinyi when relating her reasons for being attracted to the art skill.

Her love for art and European style furniture with beautiful painted motifs and patterns got her started; eventually turning her hobby into a fulfilling career.

This passionate teacher and artist who started teaching the art skill from home almost a year ago says that her dream is to have all the decorative items in her home, done by her, creating a unique and personalized home. Her home, naturally, is an inspirational environment of its own with furnishings and décor painstakingly selected and customized by her.

Sharon Ch’ng, one of Xinyi’s students, has been doing folk art painting for less than a year. She has turned old wooden stools and even broken ones into pretty decorative stools and furnished her home with many such re-used furniture and mundane objects. She added that this is a very rewarding and fun hobby as one can be creative with everyday objects.

“It didn’t take long before I was creating my very own art and felt a sense of achievement about myself” says the homemaker, who had no prior art experience. She hopes to be able to make items to sell or give as gifts in the future, allowing her to share this with other people.

“Folk art is about techniques and skill, if you don’t learn the basics, it would be difficult to paint”, says Xinyi, adding that it is a skill that comes with more hands on experience and practice, which is why she always starts her students on painting an object right from the beginning.

“Why don’t you give yourself between one and three classes to explore if you are not sure that folk art is for you or even commit to the classes? Everyone can do folk art painting”, Xinyi said, emphasizing her belief that you don’t have to be an artist to do folk art.

    ]]> http://www.ingoodproperties.com/2009/08/tips/property/folk-art-painting-a-fun-creative-hobby/feed/ 0 http://www.ingoodproperties.com/2009/08/tips/property/further-easing-on-property-buying-by-foreigners-expected/ http://www.ingoodproperties.com/2009/08/tips/property/further-easing-on-property-buying-by-foreigners-expected/#comments Thu, 13 Aug 2009 03:37:47 +0000 denisha http://www.ingoodproperties.com/?p=3 PETALING JAYA: Analysts believe Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak will make announcements to further liberalise property ownership by foreigners and boost the attractiveness of Malaysia for investment at the annual Invest Malaysia 2009 conference today.

Following UBS Research’s bullish call on the property sector on June 19, HwangDBS Research yesterday also upgraded its call on the sector, on the back of potential positive policy changes to lift the sector, sales bottoming out, attractive incentive schemes and the resumption of new launches.

Since end-2006, the Government has been liberalising the sector to attract foreign direct investments and boost demand.

“The Government is currently reviewing the Foreign Investment Committee (FIC) guidelines, and Najib is expected to make significant announcements at the Invest Malaysia conference. This could further re-rate the sector, which is already seeing sales bottoming out,” said HwangDBS Research property analyst Yee Mee Hui.

She said possible changes included curtailing the FIC’s role to monitoring only six areas of “national interest”, while other sectors would be placed under the respective ministries with clear investment criteria on their website.

This could help speed up the investment process as FIC approvals typically take one to three months versus no such requirement in other international property markets.

Other possible measures include easing FIC requirements relating to commercial properties and developers, the standardisation of bumiputra policies for consistency and transparency, easing local ownership requirements for retail and trade as well as liberalisation to help improve perceived investibility.

These measures could lead to a narrower pricing gap between Malaysian and regional properties (which are at present priced at more than a 90% discount compared with Singapore and Hong Kong), and improved liquidity with increased participation from international investors.

“Malaysian property is attractive as foreigners are allowed to own freehold landed properties, compared with regional markets which only permit foreigners to own leasehold land of short tenures,” said Yee.

Owing to the warm response to recent launches, Yee understands that more developers are planning to launch high-end properties in Kuala Lumpur and Penang in the second half of 2009.

“Developers could start raising prices again. Present buyers of properties are predominantly locals acquiring for own use. The return of foreign investors should provide a strong boost for property sales and prices,” she said.

Yee noted that Malaysia had yet to see a strong rebound in property sales compared with regional markets like Singapore and Hong Kong.

Her top big-cap picks include SP Setia Bhd, while mid-caps include Eastern & Oriental Bhd, Sunrise Bhd and Sunway City Bhd.

However, industry observers pointed out that some of the administrative bottlenecks relating to property transactions are at the state government level because land is a state matter.

It is worth noting that at Invest Malaysia 2007, key liberalisation measures announced were related to the property sector.

Significant measures included the exemption of real property gains tax for both residents and non-residents effective April 1, 2007.

Foreigners were also allowed to purchase residential properties above RM250,000 each without FIC approval.

There was also a series of incentives to attract investors to Iskandar Malaysia which included tax holidays and exemptions.