By Khairul Khalid
Nor Mohamed Yakcop
Malaysia should move away from viewing housing as a social welfare issue to a broader agenda of managing the sector as a whole, says Nor Mohamed Yakcop, chairman of Khazanah Research Institute (KRI).
“The housing sector must be viewed as an important and productive sector, where policies have serious repercussions for overall economic performance and not, as is commonly viewed especially for low-cost housing, as a sector which is a drain on the resources,” said Nor Yakcop.
He was speaking at the launch of KRI’s report titled Making Housing Affordable. Nor Yakcop added that the housing sector has significant effects on the country’s economy, investments, and employment.
The KRI report revealed that the Malaysian housing market is “severely unaffordable”, with median house price amounting to four times median household income per year. An affordable market is one where the median house is three times median annual household income.
The KRI report said that to tackle the issue of affordable housing more effectively, government policies should be geared toward improving housing supply and reforming the inefficient construction industry to drive prices down.
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