(from comments)
Are you looking to buy? I can show you how i did methodical shopping last year. Gov.my had policies to depress prices from 2020 to 2021. In 2022 the pressure was off so it's freer now. Prices in Malaysia are only likely to go up.
1. As the MYR depreciates, our property looks better to rich people. The MYR is depreciating because the US is raising rates. More on this below. As property bubbles ex(cluding)-Malaysia start to pop, investors look at non-bubbles as value buys, driving up prices.
2. Ex-Malaysia bubbles are popping because gov.us is raising interest rates, so it's more expensive for everyone to borrow money to invest in bubbles (US underpins global lending market).
3. Us.gov is raising rates to depress US inflation, and reduce pain for their citizens.
4. US inflation is up because US is a major import/export hub, and globally supplies of things are short due to downsizing during global covid lockdowns ... plus bro Putin doing Putin things messed up energy and food prices this year.
As a buyer you're limited in the size of what you can buy by :
1. Age : loans here tend to cap you at 70 years, so a 65yo can get only a 5y loan. You, under 30, may get a 70y loan. Longer loans mean smaller monthly instalments.
2. Free cashflow for investment : a rough guide would be to budget 30% of your income after tax into mortgage instalments.
2a. Lifestyle choices, may increase cashflow for investment : some people consume more, some invest more. Hence those blogposts about "haha i saved 70% of my income and ate tuna for 8 years and bought a house". To get this data, one has to track expenditure monthly to understand the % breakdown. Caveat 2c.
2b. Interest rate regimes : you have to read the news for this one. Knowing roughly if in the next 10 years interest rates are going up or down, helps you plan a bit. You can get fixed-rate or floating-rate interest loans as a strategic play, you pick after modelling the difference.
2c. Income strategy : it's generally agreed that learning how to earn more, is a far more productive strategy than learning how to save more without increasing earnings. Plenty of pop blogs on this.
Combining 2abc, lets you plan like ... Example: I can afford X mortgage now, but rates will rise, so I expect to pay (X+Y) by next year and (X+Y+Z) in five years for the same mortgage which is more expensive later monthly. However if I have a frugal saving pattern now I can aim a bit higher than X, and if my income strategy works out I should be making lots more in 5 years when (xyz) will feel like nothing, so I can actually afford a slightly bigger mortgage, which lets me buy a property with "better upside for appreciation" increasing my chance of turning this into a rental unit which pays for itself in the future.
