MONEY MASTER

Recently I have learned that a lot of my colleagues, who are few years my junior bought their 1st property right after they start to work and it seems that it is slightly contradict with the article "The young find it difficult to afford a home" from The Star - which brings me to think that it could be the mindset between people from the northern region with the people living in the central region of the peninsula. I see that the people from the northern region, especially the Chinese tend to believe that property is a good investment and one should always get the first property at very young age. Although I personally don't agree on buying property right after getting the first job, I agree that purchasing property must be at young age - and we should not aim for the high-end property but rather the kind of property that we can afford at that time. I personally agree with Malaysian Institute of Estate Agents (MIEA) president Siva Shanker that the Gen-Y definitely n...

I have read an interesting article regarding Malaysian investors are not very smart. There are other similar kind of surveys and articles that seem to show that Malaysians especially the Gen Y-ers are shying away from equities investment and prefer to hold cash than any other investment assets. Below are the whole article taken from Free Malaysia Today - Our Investors Are Not Very Smart, by Scott Ng. Only 2% of Malaysian investors are able to answer survey questions. PETALING JAYA: Malaysian investors are not as smart as they think they are. A survey has painted a dismal picture, saying our investors lack financial literacy. The survey found that out of all the Malaysian participants in the survey, only 2% were capable of answering the five questions posed to them in the survey. This is in comparison with Singapore’s 20% and an 11% overall for all participants. The latest Manulife Investor Sentiment Index in Asia (Manulife ISI) is based on 3,500 interviews across seven As...

Have you ever wonder if you could ever got yourself a place you could call your own...a place call home? If you have this dream of owning a home and finding it difficult to believe you can achieve it, you're absolutely normal, given the current economy in our country. But like many, it's possible to save for your home downpayment. Some of you may opt to withdraw from your Employees Provident Fund (EPF) account number 2 to fund your house downpayment, but EPF is your retirement savings and you should really consider the possibility of it not being enough. For example, a property selling at RM400,000 with 90% loan comes with a down payment of RM40,000 (10%) and an additional of about RM20,000 in fees and charges. This would approximately come up to an initial payment of RM60,000 in cash. It may seem overwhelming to save up that much, but by drawing a strict and realistic savings plan for this purpose , you will be able to afford your first home in no time. ...