Jul 12, 2012
Datuk Chor Chee Heung is taking measures on house prices
The Malaysian government has implemented various control mechanisms to ensure a reasonable rise in house prices that has little impact on the general public, said Local Government and Housing Minister Datuk Chor Chee Heung in a Sun Daily report
The property gains tax on houses sold off within two years will be doubled to 10 percent as a measure to dissuade speculative buying. Chor went on to explain that another measure was the Bank Negara setting a 70 percent rate of financing for the purchase of a third house, requiring the purchaser to generate 30 percent on their own.
According to the Sun Daily’s report, Senator Mohd Khalid Ahmad had inquired as to what preventative measures the ministry had implemented to ensure that house prices are reigned in and whether this was intended to be enforced through legislation.
"The government launched the 1Malaysia Housing Programme (PR1MA) to ensure that the medium-income group whose monthly household income does not exceed RM7,500 can afford to own a house costing between RM150,000 and RM300,000,” Chor was reported to reply.
Chor went on to describe how 54,215 units were built under the People’s Housing Programme until December 31st last year, while another 38,950 units are planned to be built under the 10th Malaysia Plan period between 2011 and 2015, all part of intentions to focus on the low-income group.
"Besides, the state governments usually impose a condition for private housing developers to build low-cost houses for up to 30 per cent of their total housing development,” he said.
"For the moment, property prices are not going up drastically nationwide, except in main urban centres. Ministry statistics show that the average rise in house prices nationwide between 2000 and 2010 was 33 per cent,” he continued.
No plans are set yet to introduce legislation to control house prices, but the government has set ceiling prices for low-cost houses at RM42,000 (US$13,174) for Peninsular Malaysia, and MYR50,400 (US$15,809) for Sabah and Sarawak.
