The party’s housing and urban settlement coordinator, Parames Elumalai, said the government should take measures to make homeowners feel assured of not losing their properties.
She said a lot of Malaysians, especially those in the lower-income group, could be facing problems paying their monthly instalments for housing loans.
“The government has to be sensitive to the needs of this group which is unable to service payments due to the slowing economy.”
She said this group of people were worried that banks would sell off their homes to recover the outstanding amount.
Parames said this in a statement to mark World Habitat Day 2016, which was launched by the United Nations General Assembly 30 years ago to promote the idea that everyone deserves a decent place to live in.
She urged the government to control house prices and increase the number of low-cost housing units so that they become affordable for the people.
“Ironically, house prices have soared so much, but wages within the lower-income groups have remained low.”
Recent studies by Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) show house prices are 4.4 times higher than the average annual salary of Malaysians and the houses were “seriously unaffordable”.
KRI deemed an affordable market as one where the median house price is three times the median annual household income.
The majority of Malaysians are feeling the pinch from the high cost of living. There is also the fear of retrenchments after several multinational companies uprooted their businesses and moved to Vietnam.
Parames also slammed housing developers for acting as greedy capitalists by raising the cost of houses beyond the reach of many Malaysians.
She said the greed had resulted in 40 per cent of the lower-income group only “dreaming of owning a home.”
“Due to that, demand for low-cost housing is increasingly growing.
“Low-wage earners are forced to live in poorly-kept public housing areas after failing to buy a decent home.”
Parames also pointed out that residents living in public housing areas continue to face problems with the joint management bodies (JMB) in charge of apartments and the issuance of strata titles.
“Residents continue to leave in poorly-maintained buildings despite paying maintenance fees and taxes to local authorities.”