IQI : Budget 2027 Could Help Prevent RM1.8 Billion of Empty Homes and Do More for Affordable Housing Than Any Other Budget in Years
Kuala Lumpur, 5th October 2026— Malaysia’s Budget 2027, which will soon be tabled in the Dewan Rakyat, has an opportunity to make significant progress on affordable housing, according to an analysis released today by Kuala Lumpur-headquartered global property technology group, Juwai IQI. That is because it will be the first budget since the August launch of the new 10-year National Housing Policy.1
“When it comes to affordable housing, Budget 2027 is the big one,” said Juwai IQI Co-Founder and Group CEO Kashif Ansari. “The first budget since the launch of the new National Housing Policy will set the stage for the eight budgets that will follow.
“The new National Housing Policy is extremely important for affordable housing because it aims to substantially boost supply and also fix some of the persistent challenges the housing market faces.”
Data-Driven Planning Could Prevent RM1.95 Billion of Empty Homes “Data-driven planning, new ways of financing, advanced construction techniques, and ambitious new supply goals are all parts of the National Housing Policy that we expect will receive funding in Budget 2027.
“One big problem that data-driven planning should solve is unsold homes. If we build homes that are appropriate for their location, both in terms of type and price, they should sell relatively quickly in a stable market. So data-driven development could reduce the number of unsold homes.
“This could prevent homes worth billions of ringgit from sitting empty.
“For example, if data-driven planning reduces the number of unsold affordable homes by just 1,000 a year, then over the 10-year life of the policy, it would prevent nearly RM1.8 billion of affordable homes from sitting empty.2
www.edgeprop.my/content/1916521/why-are-rm300000-and-below-%E2%80%98affordable-homes%E2%80%99- 2 still-unsold ; 1,000 homes × RM195,000 = RM195 million a year × 9 years = RM1.76 billion
New Ways of Financing
Mr Ansari said, “We believe the housing industry is excited about the proposed new financing tools that the National Housing Policy is likely to offer to affordable homebuyers.
“The existing Housing Credit Guarantee Scheme will continue to guarantee home loans for first time buyers without regular salary slips, such as gig workers and the self-employed. Last year it approved guarantees for 27,000 Malaysians to buy their first home.3
“If the government can maintain that annual rate over the next 10 years, then 270,000 households would be helped. At the average household size, that works out to almost one million people benefitting.4
“The Housing Credit Guarantee Scheme already exists, but there are other creative financing schemes in the National Housing Policy that we expect to be funded in Budget 2027. One is rent-to-own, which lets families move in as tenants and end up over time owning the home, without needing a large, upfront deposit.
“Shared ownership lets buyers put down some of the money needed to buy a home, and pay the rest later when they can afford it. And long-term fixed-rate mortgages protect buyers from seeing their monthly mortgage payments climb if interest rates go up after they buy.”
Advanced Home Building Can Speed New Housing
“There’s a final initiative in the National Housing Policy that will likely get funding in Budget 2027 and have a tremendous impact on affordable housing,” said Mr Ansari, “especially on the speed and cost of construction. It’s the use of modern construction technologies.
“Most people don’t know it, but an approach called ‘Industrialised Building System’ or ‘IBS’ is already standard in affordable housing. It slashes construction time by about 25%, produces much less waste, and costs as much as 3.5% less.5
“We expect Budget 2027 to build on the success the industry has had with IBS by promoting other modern construction technologies, as well. For example, if Malaysia can adopt what’s called ‘prefabricated prefinished volumetric construction’, it could slash construction time and
www.cidb.gov.my/eng/affordable-housing-projects-embrace-ibs-with-remarkable-success/; http://www.cidb.gov.my/wp- 5 content/uploads/2022/07/182-A-Study-on-Cost-Comparison-Study-between-IBS-Conventional-Construction-min.pdf ; http://www.cidb.gov.my/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/210-Residential-Housing-Cost-A-Comparison-between-IBS Conventional-System-min.pdf
perhaps costs even further. That’s just a complicated term for describing a process where entire rooms are prebuilt and finished in a factory before being delivered to site and bolted together with other rooms to assemble a home.
“Only one Malaysian affordable housing project uses this advanced technique, SkyWorld Pearlmont in Seberang Jaya, which broke ground last summer. In time, it will become much 6 more prevalent.
“We don’t know if the government will provide funds or incentives for prefabricated prefinished volumetric construction in particular in Budget 2027, but we are confident the budget will include funds for advanced construction technologies, and the faster we can begin to adopting them, the bigger the impact they will have.”
1 Million New Homes
Mr Ansari explained that “One of the biggest problems with affordable housing is the lack of supply in the right locations. To help solve that problem, one of the centerpieces of the new policy is to create 1 million new affordable homes by 2035.7
“That would go a long way to solving the affordable home shortage.
“To some people, however, the goal of one million new affordable homes sounds impossible. Yet, Malaysia has already proven it can deliver on this promise.
“Under the 12th Malaysia Plan, the government reported more than 500,000 affordable homes completed, under construction, or approved by the five-year deadline. That’s an average of about 100,000 per year. That’s the rate at which we need to produce affordable housing to hit 8 the new 2035 goal.
“Can Malaysia produce an average of 100,000 affordable homes per year? Definitely yes. The country has been doing it for years.
“Budget 2027 will start to turn the National Housing Policy from a plan into reality,” said Mr Ansari. “If the government funds data-driven planning, new ways of financing, and modern construction in 2027, families will begin to feel the differences.”
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