Realtors in Myanmar seek to build up property business network

Realtors in Myanmar gathered here recently to seek ways of building and strengthening a network among the nation's real estate industry business amid slumping property market.

Real estate agents, brokers and other industry figures urged the government to issue licenses for real estate brokers, draft a real estate law and build a business network with realty associations in other ASEAN member countries.

The proposed real estate law, which is at the drafting stage, will be the first of its kind in Myanmar if introduced.

Since the beginning of this year, the once overheated property market in Myanmar has cooled down, fueling speculations that Yangon's real estate market will continues to fall this year from the peak.

Despite such prediction, sale and rental prices for apartments and houses in Yangon's main townships and suburbs remain unchanged.

Real estate traders insisted that there are positive sign despite current sluggish property market in Yangon, which is expected to grow 8 percent this year.

Office apartments market may enjoy a significant rise as local and foreign investors show great interest in Myanmar's real estate industry, one of the top sectors of foreign investment.

Yangon will continue to remain a major commercial center, predicting that the trend still makes it hard to strike a balance between supply and demand in 2015.

Focusing on three major constraints of Myanmar's housing property market - political change, economic outlook and limitation on foreign investment, estate agents said locals are upset about high rental fees which are on the rise almost every six months.

The government is working on a policy to solve the land-related problems.

According to experts, Myanmar's property market sees vitality thanks to the government's real estate property tax law. However, the estate prices are predicted not to fall in the future.

Meanwhile, Myanmar Real Estate Services Association has advised the government to reduce high tax fees in a bit to lure all tax payers.

Real estate remains the sixth largest sectoral foreign investment in Myanmar with 2.27 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 4.21 percent of the total of 54.086 billion dollars as of February 2015 since late 1988 when the country opened such investment.