Issues of oversupply of high-rise residential properties in Johor Bahru

In Malaysia, the residential property industry has become one of the most important sectors and has grown very swiftly. However, for the past two decades, the industry have experienced unprecedented growth resulting the problem of property overhang. The state of Johor continued to top the national list in terms of total volume and value of overhang for residential property while also topped the list for unsold residential properties, in terms of those under construction and those not constructed. As a result, the issue of oversupply arises, as property overhang leads to property oversupply. The number of unsold residential properties is at a decade-high, with most of the units being in the RM250,000 and above price category, beyond the income of most Malaysians. Alarmingly, 61 % of the total unsold residential units were high-rise properties, out of which 89% were priced above RM250,000. To further support the purpose of this research, Johor has the largest share of unsold residential units (27% of total unsold properties in Malaysia). Two research objectives have been developed which are first to identify the factor of oversupply of high-rise residential properties and second, to identify the possible solutions to overcome oversupply of high-rise residential properties. By adopting quantitative approach, sets of questionnaires were distributed to 92 targeted respondents (real estate agent companies) through e-mail. All the data collected were analysed by using descriptive statistical analysis in the software of Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 25. At the end of the study, the findings shows that there are eighteen (18) factors of oversupply of high-rise residential properties, three (3) of those received mean score above 4.50.