“Gamuda projects combined sales from the three township projects to almost quadruple to RM1.15 billion in FY19F from a mere RM300 million in FY18."

He noted that affordable housing will remain a main theme next year and developers will continue to launch affordably-priced smaller units to cater to homebuyers.

“We are now working with investment banks and accountants. Once we have formalised the proposal, we will submit it to both ministries (KPKT and MoF), and at the next stage, to Securities Commission."

He said the perception that owning a home is an urgent need must change if individuals cannot afford to buy them within a short period

The stamp duty waiver for those purchasing a RM300,000 home, for instance, will give first-time homebuyers a savings of around RM5,000.

“Overall, the Budget 2019 is a statistic of charting the future development with a holistic approach while more targeted to address issues that are being faced by Malaysia,” Zuraida said.

But how much does a car park space cost developers? How much does it contribute to the selling price of a property?

"...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.”

Budget 2019 has proposed several stamp duty exemptions on transactions by first-time homebuyers.

“Companies have overheads to cover. What is interesting would be how is the government going to monitor these selling prices by the developers?”