Affordable housing has been one of the main problems faced by Malaysians. With the sky-rocketing cost of living, many Malaysians are finding it hard to save money for their first home.
To address this, the revised Budget 2016 looked into ways to help more Malaysians own their first home.
Measures that were introduced include the new ruling that all new housing projects priced up to RM300,000 will be limited to first-time house buyers only, with immediate effect.
The Government will also organise Integrated House Ownership Expo Roadshows, which will offer more than 100,000 housing units under programmes like the National Housing Department (JPN), 1Malaysia People Housing Programme (PR1MA), Syarikat Perumahan Negara Berhad (SPNB), and Perumahan Penjawat Awam 1Malaysia (PPA1M).
For houses priced at RM35,000 under the People’s Housing Programme (Projek Perumahan Rakyat or PPR), the Government will offer a financing package at 4% through Bank Simpanan Nasional (BSN) and Bank Rakyat. This will benefit more than 10,000 house owners.
The Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association Malaysia (Rehda) lauded the new measures introduced in the recalibrated budget, calling the revision “timely and pro-active” in ensuring that the country’s economy remain resilient amid challenging times.
“Homeownership continues to be amongst the main priority especially for the low income group and first time house buyers. The financing package offered at 4% for PPR house buyers is definitely good news to the rakyat in view of current situation where housing loan financing has become a main problem among house purchasers,” Rehda said in a statement.
Rehda also hopes that the Government will consider expanding the incentives to cover housing under the affordable housing category so that a larger group will be able to benefit from this.
The association added that more flexibility should be given to affordable homes purchasers for their loan applications as loan rejection for this category of buyers are on the rise.
