According to Knight Frank Malaysia, major development projects in Sabah will help boost the state's property market. The Pavilion Group's Lok Kawi Resort City project, located on a 166-hectare land in Kampung Meruntum, Lok Kawi, is one of them according to the New Straits Times (NST).

The RM7 billion project would include resort hotels, a theme park, a shopping mall, residential complexes, as well as commercial and office buildings, and is a joint venture between Pavilion's affiliate Tegas Bangsa Sdn Bhd and Yayasan Sabah Group. It will be developed in stages over a 15-year period.

In order to promote more development through private finance initiatives, the Sabah government signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with Linaco Resources Sdn Bhd and SK Nexilis Co.

Real Estate in Sabah. How Did It Perform in Q1 2021?

Linaco Resources, Malaysia's biggest producer of coconut-based products, is expected to invest RM200 million in a 2,000-hectare coconut-based manufacturing facility in Paitan, Sugut, as well as another RM200 million in 4,000-hectares of large-scale, high-yield coconut plants.

The entire project is estimated to generate roughly RM1.2 billion to Sabah's economy once fully functioning. Within the Kota Kinabalu Industrial Park (KKIP), SK Nexilis and SKC Inc, a unit of South Korean conglomerate SK Group, will invest RM2.55 billion in the building of its first overseas copper foil production facility.

The 50,000-tonne manufacturing factory is expected to start construction in the second half of 2021 and be completed in 2023. These mega-development projects are projected to contribute to the pent-up demand for housing, in addition to producing jobs.

Other segments of the property market, such as commercial, retail, tourist, and leisure, will profit from these projects. Sabah's property market recorded 1,891 transactions worth RM1.03 billion in the first quarter of 2021 (Q1 2021).

According to the National Property Information Centre's (NAPIC) Annual Property Market Report, transaction volume and value climbed by 3.5 percent and 24.7 percent, respectively, year over year. Kota Kinabalu's current housing supply, which includes the districts of Kota Kinabalu, Tuaran, Penampang, Papar, and Putatan, stood at 131,999 units at the end of Q1 2021, up 0.4 percent from Q4 2020's 131,412 units.

From June 2020 to March 2021, Sabah registered 894 transactions totaling RM491.83 million under the Home Ownership Campaign (HOC) 2020 - 2021. 65.9% of these were landed homes, with the remaining 34.1 percent being high-rise apartments.