Malaysian citizens who purchased properties could pay part of the down payment using the EPF funds. Specifically, for a RM1.5 million property, the Ahmads had to put a minimum of RM75,000 in cash and withdraw RM225,000 from Account 1 of the EPF accounts. They could borrow up to 80 per cent loan-to-value or RM1.2 million, assuming they qualified for the loan.

POSSIBLE SCENARIOS

The Ahmads had been advised that if they were buying to stay, it did not matter when they entered the market. This sounded counterintuitive to them. How could it not matter if they had to put out more money? It would definitely affect the size of their gains/losses if they were to sell the property in, say, 10 years' time. They decided to conduct an analysis of the net gain or loss on the purchase based on several scenarios:

• In Scenario 1, the selling price of the condominium unit remained unchanged at RM1.5 at the end of 10 years.

• In Scenario 2, the selling price was up 10 per cent.

• In Scenario 3, both the rent and the selling price increased by 0.15 per cent per month for the next 10 years.

• In Scenario 4, the annual mortgage rate would be increased by 0.5 per cent for the first year onward and would be constant for the next 10 years.

For their analysis, they assumed that they eventually sold the condominium unit they would need to pay the principal still outstanding on the loan and a 1.00 per cent agent fee on the selling price.