S P Setia: More medium-cost apartments in Setia Alam

SHAH ALAM: S P Setia Bhd plans to launch at least another 300 units of medium cost apartments in its Setia Alam township in the near future to benefit from the government's "My First Home Scheme", according to group president and CEO Tan Sri Liew Kee Sin.

Liew added that although the group was recognised among buyers as a luxury and high-end property developer, it had always complied with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government's requirement to allocate 40% of its developments to include low-to medium cost properties for every housing project that it had embarked in.

"At S P Setia, we build across the board, from low-cost, low-medium-cost and medium-cost houses, which are mostly apartments to comply with the housing ministry's requirement," he said during the press conference after launching the company's new 'Setia Apps'.

The 'Setia Apps' is a lifestyle application for smart phones to provide information regarding housing policies, new guidelines, home buyer tips and many more.

Liew reiterated that the company always strived to build houses according to the government's guidelines in providing 10% of its property developments for low- cost houses, 10% for low-medium- cost houses and 20% for medium- cost houses.

"We only build 60% of our developments as high-end properties and the money that we make from these properties is used to cross-subsidise the low-cost ones," he said.

According to the housing and local government ministry guideline, a low-cost house is one that is priced from RM35,000 to RM42,000 per unit, low-medium-cost is priced from RM70,000 while a medium- cost unit is priced from RM100,000 to RM200,000.

Last week, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak launched the "My First Home Scheme" where property buyers below 35 years of age and are earning less than RM3,000 monthly can acquire houses costing from RM100,000 to RM220,000 with 100% loans from 25 financial institutions for a repayment period of up to 30 years.

On the latest purchase of land by S P Setia in Cyberjaya recently, Liew said that the company could build high-end properties on the piece of land, as the previous owner of the land — Setia Haruman Sdn Bhd — had already built the low-cost and medium-cost houses there.

S P Setia recently bought 108.5ha of prime freehold land in Cyberjaya for RM420.4 million. The land would be used for a mixed development project comprising upmarket residential and commercial properties such as RM2 million semi-detached houses and RM3 million bungalows. The project that is expected to have a gross development value of about RM3 billion would be co-developed by S P Setia and Setia Haruman in a joint-venture.

Liew reaffirmed that all S P Setia's projects had allocations for low- cost and medium-cost properties, including the Setia Pearl Island development in Penang.

At the same event, Housing and Local Government Minister Datuk Wira Chor Chee Heung said his ministry was looking at tightening the Housing Development Act with more stringent measures.

"We are overhauling the Housing Development Act and we are putting more stringent measures and regulations to make developers accountable and more protection for the house buyers," said Chor.