Will Malaysia hit its affordable housing target?

Housing authorities on track to fulfill ruling party’s campaign promise

Malaysian housing authorities are confident they can build enough dwellings to hit its target of providing one million affordable homes within 10 years.

The Housing and Local Government Ministry made the assessment based on the progress of housing projects between state governments and construction and development firms.

“With the allocation and ongoing construction projects with collaboration with state governments and private sector, we would be able to achieve the target of building 100,000 houses in a year,” Zuraida Kamaruddin saidduring the Dewan Rekyat on Tuesday.

One million affordable homes were among the campaign promises made by Malaysia’s ruling party, Pakatan Harapan, in this year’s general election.

“In fact, we are also working on building a big data system that can get an overview and projection on housing need of Malaysia because with a more accurate projection, we can determine the future housing needs more accurately,” Kamaruddin revealed to the Malay Mail.

The data would determine markets in oversupply situations; housing prices incompatible with income categories; and non-strategic housing locations.

“There will not be a not a situation like now where there are more houses than buyers, with the housing categories and locations not suitable,” she explained.