Sep 24, 2006

Build-then-sell concept vs Sell-then-build concept

The Malaysia government recently approved the concept of build-then-sell for housing development project. The build-then-sell concept is essentially a 10:90 concept whereby the house purchaser pay 10% of the purchase price first and then pay the remaining 90% of the purchase price upon the completion of the house with certificate of fitness issued.

The conventional sell-then-build require the purchaser to pay 10% of the purchase price upon the signing of the sale & purchase agreement and the remaining 90% is progressively paid to the developer in accordance with term of payment accoding to stages of construction as stipulated in the sale & purchase agreement. The developers are required to adopt the term of payment approved by the housing ministry for the remaining 90% of the purchase price. The house purchaser can pay the developer by cash or bank loan. In essence, in the sell-then-build, the house buyer part finance the developer in the construction of the project and the financial institution basically lend the money to the individual purchasers.

In the build-then-sell concept, the developers will not get to be financed by the purchasers like in the case of sell-then-build and therefore the developers will have to obtain more financing from the financial institution to finance the project up to the stage of completion.

In order for the build-then-sell concept to work, the bank will have to play a major role by providing the additional financing up to the stage of completion and this will inevitably increase the risk exposure of the financial institution. The bank normally will prefer to lend to individual purchasers in many smaller parcels instead of lending it all to the developer in one parcel.

Hence, for those companies that has just started to venture into the property development field where they do not have the necessary track record, it will be rather difficult for them to convince the bank to provide them with the financing to do it in the new build-then-sell way.

Fortunately the two concept will be allowed to run parallel otherwise many aspiring up-start developers will not be able to kick start their project.

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