PR1MA is a good programme at its core; quality affordable homes for the people. However, simply building ever more homes under PR1MA programme is not going to help the situation because what’s built MUST be sold. Else, it adds up into the unsold stocks. As it is, the problem is already pretty huge. Earlier article here: UNSOLD UNITS. The money spent for the construction of these unwanted homes could have been used elsewhere so that more Malaysians could benefit from a roof over their heads. In fact it could have been used to construct homes for rent-to-own schemes for example. So,I support the move by the Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin who announced that PR1MA homes which have not commenced will be frozen.
Article in edgeprop.my here. Zuraida said, “The PR1MA homes that have been completed will still go on sale and the ones currently under construction will still be completed. However, we are freezing the projects that have not commenced construction work as we assess their viability.” She shared that some proposed projects of the 1Malaysia People’s Housing Programme (PR1MA) are being reviewed and the impractical ones may be cancelled. Furthermore, she added that currently PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is carrying out due diligence and the decision on the projects shall be made once the firm completes its PR1MA report, which is around June 2019. Article in edgeprop.my here.
Until today, I do not have any friends who told me about their PR1MA purchase. If there are any kopiandproperty.com readers have bought a unit, could you share the progress? As a concerned Malaysian for the B40 and M40 households without a home, I think centralisation of all the affordable home programme is a step in the right direction. In PCON 2019 today, a speaker said that with proptech it is possible in the future for future buyers to indicate the kind of homes and the location before any construction starts. This will surely reduce the number of unsold units. As for whether we have OVERSUPPLY of units, the answer is NO. We simply have a mismatch in demand versus supply. Another 100,000 affordable home units are coming by the way. Cheers.
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Article written and edited by Charles. News article summarised by Dina Batrisyia.
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