More affordability for civil servants – Housing loan eligibility increased to between RM200,000 and RM750,000. (Current is between RM120,000 to RM600,000). In brief, the civil servants can buy more expensive homes? Hmm….
More availability for civil servants – 30,000 homes to be built under 1Malaysia Civil Servants Home costing between RM90,000 to RM300,000.
More availability of homes for B40 (Bottom 40%) – 5,000 homes to be built at prices between RM40,000 and RM50,000. RM20,000 will be paid by the government.
More availability under People’s Housing Programme – Another 11,250 homes to be built and prices between RM35,000 to RM42,000.
More RENTAL HOMES to be built in urban areas for rental for up to five years for new graduates or youths. As per reported, the number is 10,000 houses. Assuming each house can house 4, that’s good enough for 40,000 people.
Vacant government lands will be made available and estimated new homes which can be built under PPR (Projek Perumahan Rakyat) would be 8,900 houses. (I would like to suggest they ensure it’s high rise so that it can benefit more people instead of very small landed homes)
1st home buyers get 100% stamp duty exemption on transfer and housing instruments. This helps toreduce house buying cost – limited to houses with value up to RM300k. Effective period – 1 Jan 2017 to 31 Dec 2018. (For first-time buyers, this should be another consideration as stamp duty itself is between 1 – 3 percent, depending on property price)
PR1MA home buyers get “end-financing” for their purchase. From 90% to 100%. In brief, there’s little need to use own savings? Well, I am not so sure if this is good for the market.
Conclusion? The focus is solely on trying to ensure everyone has a roof over their head which I think is good. All these measures are not likely to boost the property market in general as most of the properties mentioned above are the lower priced ones instead of the typical ones that most of the middle income Malaysians are complaining about. I shall not comment on whether their complaints are all justified but do note that many times, choices are still available but it may not be the one that everyone is looking for. As for loan approvals, I favour a safer lending policy and not one where everyone looking for loans easily getting one. When that happens, I will be worried for the property market. I think the budget 2017 has not changed much for the property market currently but for the lower middle income Malaysians, perhaps it’s time they get a home of their own within these few years. Cheers and happy buying one.
written on 22 Oct 2016
Next suggested article: Not an easy time for the Malaysia property market
