Housing demand will stay strong, says Rehda deputy president

KUALA LUMPUR: The demand for housing is expected to remain strong for the next 12 to 18 months, after which the market will stabilise, according to Datuk Fateh Iskandar Mohamed Mansor, deputy president of the Real Estate and Housing Developers' Association of Malaysia (Rehda).

"There is pent-up demand in the market now streaming from the lack of launches during the financial crisis and the real pick-up came only early this year," Iskandar said during his presentation at the Third Malaysian Construction Summit 2010 on Tuesday, Nov 2.

He added that Malaysia's young and growing population will continue to feed demand for housing and it is estimated that Malaysia needs about 180,000 to 200,000 residential units a year.

It is estimated that in 2009, there were about 200,000 housing transactions of which 67% were located in the Klang Valley of which 15% to 18% were upgraders.

Iskandar, who is also chief executive officer of Glomac Bhd, puts the future estimated demand to be around 250,000 residential units per annum, with an estimated growth of four million residents in Greater Kuala Lumpur by 2020.

Iskandar also urged the government to adopt the Industrialised Building System (IBS) to calling it an "imperative" tool to cope with the massive projects under 10th Malaysia Plan (10MP), Budget 2011 and the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP). IBS is a construction process that utilises products, techniques, components and building systems which involve prefabricated components and on-site installation.

"IBS would benefit the nation in terms of economies of scale in costs and scope, but is currently underutilised in Malaysia as the product life cycle is at still at adoption stage," said Iskandar.

Rehda had proposed that the government should take the lead in adopting IBS by giving tax incentives to users and for all government projects to be carried out using IBS as well as other forms of incentives.