Sunway Property aims for higher sales this year
KUALA LUMPUR: Sunway Property, a unit of Sunway Bhd, is targeting a higher sales this year as it expects the property market to improve following an eventual rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination programme.
The developer said it is setting a sales target of RM1.6bil for 2021, which is 23% higher than 2020’s sales target of RM1.3bil.
To fulfill this target, Sunway Property managing director Sarena Cheah said the company is planning to launch RM2.8bil worth of properties in Malaysia, Singapore and China this year.
“We are looking at 40% of launches being in Malaysia, 30% in Singapore and 30% in China. With the movement control order 2.0, we had become more cautious but this will be the figure guiding us forward, ” Cheah said at a press briefing.
“Should the vaccination take effect a lot faster, we are hoping to do better than this. The target sales this year is RM300mil higher than last year but I am quite confident to do better than RM1.6bil with the help of the team, ” she added.
All of its new launches in Malaysia or RM1.1bil worth of properties will be in the Klang Valley, where the company expects the economy to rebound the strongest in tandem with the vaccine rollout.
The remaining 60% of launches will be in Singapore and China, the company said.
These will comprise the Parc Central Residences Condominium in Singapore with a gross development value (GDV) of RM910mil and Phase 3 of Sunway Gardens Condominiums in Tianjin, China, with a GDV of RM780mil.
Cheah said Sunway Property has unbilled sales of RM2.2bil, which will provide clear earnings visibility for the next two to three years.
“Unbilled sales are properties which we have sold but have not yet built. This will cover us for the next two years’ revenue stream, ” she said.
Meanwhile, Cheah said there appears to be a preference from the general public to rent accommodation these days.
“One of the new things that we would want to implement at Sunway Property is to work closely with the people who prefer to rent at this point in time.
“We find that now, the new segment of younger generation who are coming out to work or starting a small family prefer to defer purchasing their properties and rent first for various reasons.
“We would like to cater for this segment, starting with one of our developments in Sunway City KL, and we would also be looking at other locations where we would do something similar, ” she added.
Cheah said that other than allowing people to rent out, they could rent and at the same time convert part of that amount to an eventual downpayment for the purchase of any property.
“We would like to slowly grow this but the key would still be on the (property) development business. We see the accommodation rental space contribution growing as well but we want it to complement our development business, ” she said.
On the coming listing of Sunway Medical Centre (SunMed), Cheah said the group is on track to eventually float this business segment.
“SunMed is a very good candidate for listing, operating in a rising space. It is doing very well and we are putting a lot of investments for its expansion. When we are ready (to float), we would announce it accordingly, ” she said.
https://www.thestar.com.my/business/business-news/2021/03/05/sunway-property-aims-for-higher-sales-this-year
