Soaring property prices: Profits vs Basic right to housing

This video, ‘M-C-M: Utopia milik siapa?’ explores how housing – a basic human right – has been turned into a commodity that earns fabulous profits for developers and banks while pushing homes beyond the reach of young working adults.

Political parties on both sides of the divide realise that the lack of ‘affordable housing’ is likely to be a key election issue. In response, their approach has been to point to their record in building such homes or to come up with fresh pledges to build more such homes in the coming years.

But does this go far enough – when it is the entire system that has turned affordable housing into a commodity that enriches bankers and developers, not to mention supporting professionals. As housing prices soar, many ordinary Malaysians find themselves priced out of the market or incurring unhealthy amounts of household debt through burdensome housing loans.

From easy loans to the building of high profit-margin homes targeted at the wealthy elite (both locals and foreigners), many young Malaysians find themselves pushed further out to the outskirts of of the city – where public transport to places of work is lacking.

So then they have to incur further expenses on petrol, toll and private motor vehicles to reach their places of work in the city.

Boon Kia Meng’s production also explores the possibility that we may be heading for a property bubble and points to some similarities with the situation in Spain.

Verdict: A fine effort by Kia Meng on an important social issue, worth the watch. Hopefully, this video will prompt Malaysian to ask political parties what they are going to do to revamp the system – so that once again, housing will be viewed as a basic human right and not a commodity to enrich developers and bankers at the expense of the people.

- anilnetto