Malaysia's property market saw a mixed performance last year, with transaction volume shrinking and transaction value rising.

According to the country's National Property Information Center (NAPIC) here on Wednesday, Malaysia saw 269,600 transactions done last year, down 2.5 percent compared with the same period of last year.

However, the total transaction value reached 58.58 billion ringgit (16.73 billion U.S. dollars), an improvement of 4.9 percent compared with the same period of last year.

Most states recorded decreases in the transaction volume except Sabah (18.2 percent), Selangor (11.2 percent), Kuala Lumpur (4.8 percent), Sembilan (one percent) and Terengganu (0.6 percent).

The increase in Sabah was due to better demand for development land and residential properties in the state.

However, the state of Kelantan recorded the highest decrease ( 26.1 percent) in transaction volume due to softening in agriculture and commercial activities.

The states of Kedah, Perlis and Pulau Pinang also registered lower market activities, which saw 26 percent, 14.2 percent and 12. 4 percent reductions in their transaction volumes respectively.

The residential property sector continued to dominate the market, accounting for 65.4 percent of the transaction volume, followed by the agriculture, commercial, development land and industrial property sectors respectively which accounted for 18.9 percent, 9.0 percent, 4.1 percent and 2.6 percent respectively.

A total of 176,277 residential transactions worth of 28.7 billion ringgit (8.2 billion U.S. dollars) were done last year, against 181,762 transaction worth of 28.4 billion ringgit (8.1 billion U.S. dollars) in 2005.

Most states in the country saw better occupancy rates compared with 2005, except Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Sembilan, Pahang and Sarawak.

Putrajaya and Perlis enjoyed a full occupancy rate, according to the center.