Govt urged to enlist GLC and directly engage B40 households to get true picture of hindrances

PETALING JAYA: Government-linked companies (GLC) at both the federal and state levels should take the lead in the development of the affordable housing segment, said an industry player.

“Almost every state has GLC that specialises in real estate development, making it easier to carry out affordable housing projects rather than depend on the private sector,” said Carey Real Estate Sdn Bhd corporate real estate division head, Shawn A. Valerio.

“With that, we don’t need to have too many agencies all moving in different directions.”

Valerio said in the National Affordable Housing Policy (July 2019), the government said it was targeting to deliver one million affordable homes within a 10-year period.

“That itself indicates there is a lack of affordable housing and that gap can widen if Malaysians’ earning capacity isn’t in tandem with inflation and higher costs of building homes.”

He added that affordable housing in key urban areas must be close to public transportation.

“There is a lot of government-owned land surrounding public transit hubs in the Klang Valley, and part of these areas could be committed to creating affordable housing.

“When enough affordable housing is built in a certain area, there will be a demand for retail services such as restaurants, clinics, and supermarkets.”

He said it is not always a dearth of affordable homes in a particular area that keeps many low-income people from buying them.

“It’s just an issue of constructing real affordable homes in a certain geographic location.”

“What I mean by that is for the Klang Valley area, affordable housing needs to be within RM300,000 and have sufficient built-up for a small family, say 850sq ft to 1,000sq ft. At that price, a family with an income of RM3,000 per month would be able to afford it,” he said, adding that having the correct financing structure for the market segment is also important.

“Rent-to-own is a good model to encourage home ownership and it’s a win-win structure for all.”

Meanwhile, Universiti Malaya professor of economics Datuk Dr Rajah Rasiah said there is a shortage of affordable housing units.

“The government launched several programmes to address the problem, but have so far fallen short of delivering enough affordable homes.”

Rajah added that the government should identify individuals in the B40 group who still lack access to home ownership and work with them to find ways to provide them with affordable housing.

“It is not enough just to launch incentives and rebates to developers to build affordable homes as the reasons for homelessness are too many. The housing ministry officials should actually connect with B40 households to solve problems of information imperfections,” he added.

He said it is pertinent to establish special home designated sites in high demand locations, where leasehold conditions should be applied. Such locations should be government-owned but leased at affordable rates to the B40 group.

“The construction should be done by developers who have been audited to enjoy reasonable (rather than windfall) profits. Government committees handling the allocation and maintenance of such housing schemes should include representatives from the government, construction industry and civil society,” Rajah said.