Limited share price upside seen for Malaysian property sector

Rising interest rates, Malaysia’s slowing gross domestic product growth and unfavourable government policies will limit share price upside for Malaysian property development companies, said CGS-CIMB.Although it expects the property companies in its coverage universe to post positive earnings growth this year, CGS-CIMB said share price upside will be limited and the sector is unlikely to re-rate to peak levels last seen in 2014.

“The property sector has garnered more interest lately due to its attractive valuations, but we believe the sector is cheap for a reason and this could be a false dawn. We believe developers could miss their new property sales targets for 2018, and are likely to set lower new sales targets for 2019. We think it’s a signal that the 2019 property market is likely to see lower new property sales and weaker buying sentiment,” it said in its report.

According to its analysis, the medium 40% and bottom 40% (B40) households face difficulty in buying properties as the average house price is above both groups’ affordability range and despite government incentives and policies to address this issue, the oversupply in the property market has continued to rise since 2012.

“Likewise, property stocks have fallen from their peak valuations in 2014, some to the trough levels in 2008, making them attractively priced at the moment, in our opinion,” it added.

CGS-CIMB does not see much room for housing loan growth given the existing low interest rate environment, limited buyer’s affordability and possible interest rate hike.

In addition, restrictive government policies are still in place and it does not see any incentive for consumers to purchase property given the weak rental market and subdued property market.

Given the limited domestic affordability, higher real property gains tax and restrictive policies on foreigners, the property oversupply issue is expected to persist. Note that in 1H2018, properties priced below RM1 million accounted for 93% of total unsold residential property inventory.

“We expect the housing market to remain challenging in the near term, unless there is a meaningful surge in household income, decline in house prices or more positive measures are introduced,” it said.

Although lower property prices are possible, developers would be at the losing end if they were to lower prices at the expense of profit margins to spur new property sales demand or remove rebates/freebies to protect margins, which could result in weaker new sales.

“Even if new house prices are cut by 20%, we think the prices would still be unaffordable for the B40 households. Instead of focusing on increasing affordable housing supply and ownership, we believe a better way to approach the housing glut is to increase Malaysians’ household income in a meaningful way,” it said.

CGS-CIMB maintained its “neutral” call on the sector with an estimated dividend yield of 3% on average in 2019.

Sime Darby Property Bhd remains its top pick as the company has shown continuous improvement in its property development division and new property sales since its demerger in November 2017.

“We believe the group’s healthy balance sheet and massive land bank are advantages in addressing the change in future product demand,” it said.