PETALING JAYA: The Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association Malaysia (Rehda) has urged the government to expand its rental housing initiative to help those with low income who are struggling to afford their own homes.
Its chairman Jeffrey Ng was quoted by Utusan Malaysia as saying that renting could be a more sustainable option as land was a limited and depleting resource.
“This is in contrast to providing subsidised low-cost homes, which are finite and require more houses to be built for new buyers.
“If the government continues to build homes, there will always be pressure to find more land and build more houses,” Utusan reported him as telling reporters at Rehda’s Regional Housing Conference 2024 here today.
Currently, the government offers affordable rental housing under the People’s Housing Project (PPR) for households with monthly incomes of less than RM3,000, as well as under PR1MA. It also offers rent-to-own options under the My First Home Scheme.
At the event, Rehda launched its report “Affordable Housing II – Closing the Gap: A Strategic Approach to Balancing Supply & Demand”, an extension of its first report from 2018.
Meanwhile, Rehda’s research and development director T Malathi said during the presentation of the report that the number of completed but unsold houses in the country had increased by over 100% in the past 10 years, from 12,551 units in 2013 to 25,816 units last year.
She noted that 7,592 of these units were priced at RM300,000 and below.
She also said there were 433,136 households with incomes below RM2,000 while the number of completed houses under various government housing initiatives totalled 212,328 units as of 2022.
“This meets 50% of the housing needs of households with incomes below RM2,000.
“Meanwhile, the total budget for public housing from 2013 to 2023 amounted to RM12.7 billion, involving 1,033,949 housing units,” she said. - FMT
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