How to choose a home loan

From Star Online: Archieves

By iMoney.com

18th May 2013

Your priority should probably be to go to the bank that offers you the lowest interest rate.

TO the common folk, choosing a home loan is almost as hard as choosing the property itself. If you're currently in the midst of shopping for a home loan to buy your dream house, here are six things you should consider before making what could arguably be the biggest financial decision of your life.

1) Type of home loan

First and foremost, consider what works best for you: a traditional term loan or a flexible home loan (flexi-loan). A traditional term loan requires you to pay a fixed amount each month for the entire tenure of your home loan (eg. 30 years), while a flexi-loan gives you the option of reducing your interest whenever you wish (i.e. by saving your extra money into a linked current account. The more you save, the less interest you pay).

If you have a strict and predictable cash-flow pattern, a traditional term loan may be best. If you prefer flexibility in paying off your loan, a flexi-loan is recommended.

2) Interest rate

As with all loans, your priority should probably be to go to the bank that offers you the lowest interest rate. Let's consider a home loan of RM500,000, over a period of 30 years. The difference in interest payment between an interest rate of 4.2% and 4.15% (i.e. a mere 0.05%) could be well over RM5,000!

Malaysia's industrial land prices rise to unreasonable levels

From Star Online: Archieves

2nd May 2013

KUALA LUMPUR: “Chronic” speculation has driven up prices of industrial land to outstrip even that of some advanced Western countries, said Malaysian Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) Managers Association chairman Datuk Stewart LaBrooy.

Citing an example, he said the cost of industrial land in Germany, at RM20 per sq ft, was now cheaper than Malaysia.

“I can't find land for RM20 per sq ft here unless it is a swamp, in which case it would need a lot of money to rehabilitate.