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Thousands of Chinese are individual investors who come to Malaysia to buy real estate with the dream of owning a second home outside the mainland.
Newspaper South China morning post There is a record of an escape of Chinese in the state of Johor, the southernmost state in Malaysia.
From Yunnan Province, China, Ms. Patricia Li moved here in 2017, when everything made people believe in a bright future. At that time, thousands of Chinese who were individual investors headed to Malaysia to buy real estate with the dream of owning a second home outside the mainland.
Many Chinese real estate developers also invest heavily in Johor, as the state is close to Singapore. They develop projects adapted to the needs of Chinese who want to invest abroad or build new lifestyles abroad. Since 2011, Guangdong-based real estate company Country Garden has invested nearly RM20 billion (US $ 4.83 billion) in Malaysia, creating more than 1,500 jobs.
Ms. Li opened a teahouse in Johor specializing in serving the growing Chinese community here, thanks to the Second House (MM2H) program launched in 2002 that allows foreign investors to have up to 10 resident visas. year.
However, things changed rapidly in a short time due to the translation of COVID-19. In addition, the deteriorating geopolitical environment has made Chinese investors cautious. More recently, last month, Malaysia decided to suspend the Second House program to comply with the government’s decision to ban foreigners from entering the COVID-19 room.
Faced with many uncertainties, those who want to settle in Johor are forced to think again. Those who have left Malaysia are not sure when they will be able to return. Therefore, some people promote Malaysian home sales remotely with heavy losses.
According to Ms Li, on China’s WeChat social network, there are many advertisements for selling apartments with an area of 48m2.two for 600,000 yuan (about $ 88,640). Meanwhile, Ms. Li said that she spent more than 1 million yuan to purchase an apartment of the same type, where a tea house was opened, in 2016.
Ms. Li’s tea shop currently only has a few customers. Her most frequent issue is whether or not to sell her apartment cheaply.
Wendy Wu, a native of Beijing with real estate in Johor, is quite concerned and says that without a guaranteed long-term residence visa, no new Chinese investor coming to Johor will buy a house.
Between 2002 and 2018, the MM2H second residence program issued 43,943 visas to investors from 131 countries and regions, 30% of which are from mainland China. However, this door is now closed and no one knows when it will reopen.
According to the Malaysia Second Home Program Advisory Association, 90% of the applications they submitted between September and November 2019 (before the COVID-19 outbreak) were rejected without any explanation. Come on.
Buying a home abroad is considered a shortcut to a better life with many Chinese families. Property values not only increase in value over time in Johor, but are also drawn to the tropical habitat which is good for family life, while being relatively close to Singapore.
Johor is a place where the dream of having a house near the sea, fresh air, children attending an international middle-class Chinese school comes true. Many people have bought an apartment on their first trip to Johor, especially when they know that the average price of an apartment here is only a quarter of that of an apartment in central Beijing.
