Buying a property can be both an exciting and a stressful experience; for some people, buying a home is a major milestone that sits at the top of their lifetimes “To Do” list. While most of us are aware of the additional entry costs involved such as legal fees, insurance, agent fees etc. when buying a property, most investors tend to overlook including stamp duty – which can be extremely pricey -as part of the entry cost.
Be it in Malaysia or anywhere across the ocean, stamp duty charges are undoubtedly one of the most dreaded taxes in the property sphere. Since the recent budget that seemingly revolves around the interest of rakyat (checkout 2018 Budget revolves around the interest of the rakyat) brought some interesting changes to the stamp duty on property purchases, let’s take a look at what 2018 has in store for us.
For those who are not yet up to speed with the recent property related budgets, check out our takeaways here: Property related takeaways from Budget 2018
Tier rates for stamp duty:
Scenario 1
If you buy a property at RM250,000 the breakdown of the property stamp duty is as below:
For a property worth RM250,000, the stamp duty costs an additional of RM4000. This amounts to a lot of money when factored with other entry costs, especially for first time home buyers.
The good news is in an effort to reduce the cost of home ownership for Malaysian citizen first time home buyers and to increase the rate of home ownership, the government has proposed the following stamp duty exemptions in the last Budget 2017. Exemption is given on stamp duty for the purchase of first property worth up to RM300,000.
READ: I’m jaded about the Budget’s housing initiatives, what about you?
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Scenario 2
In this case, if you are a 1st home buyer, buying a property at RM300,000 the breakdown of the property stamp duty is as below:
The initiative by the government to reduce the cost of property ownership will boost property purchases especially for property below RM500,000, which is the affordable price range for the majority of Malaysians.
On the contrary, the latest update on the stamp duty may have a different impact to the property market. From 2018 onwards, there will be an additional tier for property valued at above the RM1,000,000 bracket, which will subject these properties to 4% stamp duty as shown below:
2018 Stamp Duty Scale
Scenario 3
In which case, if you are buying a property at RM1,500,000 the breakdown of the property stamp duty is as below:
Scenario 3
*Kaygarn Tan is an author of ‘The Master Key Method to Unlock the Secrets of Property Investment’ and a property investment expert.