By Khairul Khalid
A report by the Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) urges the property industry to emulate the Philippines’ model to solve the affordable housing problem in Malaysia.
The KRI report, titled Making Housing Affordable, cited a case study in the Philippines where two-bedroom homes start at 715,000 Philippine pesos (RM63,426.70).
The homes are part of a project called the Deca Home Resort Residences developed by 8990 Holdings in Mintal, Davao City.
“If the Philippines can do it, why can’t we? It is not a model from Europe or somewhere far away, but from within this region.
“We are not asking our developers to copy them 100% but to use it as a good reference point to improve our system,” said Charon Mokhzani, managing director of KRI, at the launch of the report.
Charon Mokhzani
Charon said that another imperative issue is that people do not demand just “houses” but places of living or a habitat.
“If we are building houses as a product of the building industry, then regulations on land or the provision of public amenities are secondary to the building regulations that ensure fitness for occupation,” said Charon.
He said that a habitat, on the other hand, ensures a multiplicity of networks within its node ranging from physical (power, water, sanitation, roads), economic (urban transport, labour markets, distribution and retail), and social (education, health, security, family and friends).
“The ability to connect all of these networks makes a habitat valuable,” said Charon.
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 also said that to tackle the issue of affordable housing more effectively, government policies should be geared towards improving housing supply and reforming the inefficient construction industry to drive prices down.
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