Affordable homes: Learn from Johor sultan, Putrajaya told
The high prices of low-cost homes in some states show how housing projects benefit developers instead of the people, says DAP’s Charles Santiago.
DAP’s Charles Santiago said the Sultan had broken the myth that a quality home had to come with a huge price tag, which many Malaysians could only dream of being able to afford.
“In some states, even low-cost homes are priced within the RM40,000 to RM60,000 range. They are unaffordable.
“It just shows how the housing projects (in some states) are pro-developer. It just shows how far we have gone wrong,” he told FMT.
Santiago was commenting on the Johor ruler’s “Rumah Impian Sultan Ibrahim” project, which offered bungalows and semi-detached houses at below RM100,000 each.
The Sultan of Johor, Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar had said that for a start, 1,840 homes would be built in phases in three locations in the state.
Three-bedroom units with a built up space of 103 sq m each are reserved for Johoreans who cannot afford or have not bought a home, or who are in the low-income group.
The Sultan declared that although relatively cheap, the homes would be of good quality, even if he had to bear a loss for the sake of the people.
Nearly 200,000 people showed up to try to book a unit in the first two hours of registration on March 22.
Santiago said the main attraction was the price as it was impossible to buy a quality home elsewhere for such a price.
Meanwhile, DAP Kulai MP Teo Nie Ching said the federal government had promised to build half a million homes that were “affordable”.
“But even then, the price can be too high. In reality, it shows that even affordable housing is not really ‘affordable’,” she said.
Bank Negara’s Financial Stability and Payment Systems Report 2016 says that since 2012, the increase in the prices of houses in Malaysia has outstripped the rise in income levels.
The report primarily attributes this to a gross mismatch between housing supply and demand amid diverging expectations between households and developers.
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It says the issue of affordable housing reflects the supply and demand imbalances in Malaysia, which worsened between 2012-2014.