Budget 2019: IDEAS applauds REHDA’s commitment to lower house prices by 10%

PETALING JAYA (Nov 2): The Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) senior fellow Dr Carmelo Ferlito has applauded the commitment made by the Real Estate and Housing Developers’ Association Malaysia (Rehda) to reduce house prices by 10% for new projects that are not subject to price control, which was announced in Budget 2019 today.

“This is a market driven move and initiative by Rehda and not because the government has imposed this term on the developers. Well of course, seeing that the unsold units are so high, we welcome this action. There is a common view from both the developer and the government,” Ferlito told EdgeProp.my.

However, Ferlito noted that this Budget also saw the government’s focus on affordable housing such as allocation of nearly RM1.5 billion to the Program Perumahan Rakyat, Perumahan Penjawat Awam Malaysia, PR1MA and Syarikat Perumahan Nasional Bhd in order to ensure adequate supply of houses which he said, the government should withdraw from.

“Having said that, we don’t expect the government to withdraw from [investing in affordable housing] overnight. In a positive stance, the incentives and action plans were very limited to very low income people such as those who are earning less than RM2,300 per month to own their first home,” Ferlito said.

He also pointed out that the peer to peer funding initiative is an interesting experiment to solve the housing overhang and needs to be monitored by the relevant authorities to make sure it works.

“We need to wait and see for further details on this scheme so that we can evaluate it,” said Ferlito.