A house buyers’
group has labelled the My First Home scheme an “ill-advised” policy after it
was reported this week that not a single loan application has been approved
under Putrajaya’s home ownership scheme for low-income earners.
The scheme,
launched by Datuk Seri Najib Razak a year ago, has come to a grinding halt as
banks are unwilling to hand out 100 per cent financing for property worth up to
RM400,000 to applicants earning less than RM3,000 a month.
National
Homebuyers Association (HBA) honorary secretary-general Chang Kim Loong told
The Malaysian Insider that setting a ceiling of RM400,000 under a scheme for
“affordable housing” was “ridiculous and somebody must have told the prime
minister the wrong facts.”
“It is obvious that
our honourable PM was ill-advised by parties with vested interest on setting
the price range of RM400,000 for income earners below RM3,000,” he said in an
interview. (TMI, 9 Mar 2012)
A 400,000 loan over 25 years will yield a monthly instalment of 2,577.21 per month. The PM expects people earning 3,000 (gross) to spend 85% of their salary on house instalments? What would this people eat?
Okay, 400,000 may be a bit steep. What about 300,000? A 25 year, 100% loan @ 6% p.a., the monthly instalment comes up to 1,932.90, if approved will leave the applicant with less than 1,000 to spend on everything else.
200,000? Same tenure and rate will cost the house buyer 1,288.60 per month which sounds more affordable-ish. But a 200,000 house in the Klang Valley is either of very low quality or very-very far from civilisation.
The truth is, there are a lot of people earning RM3,000 or less a month but decent houses costing less than 200,000 is scarce. I doubt the PM knows that.
How do we ensure that the young and the low income population gets the opportunity to own houses?
Maybe the government can offer discounts to first time buyers, regardless of race, if they can prove that; (1) they (both the husband and wife) have never bought a house before, (2) their household income is RM3,000 or less.
The government can (should) force developers to build more medium cost houses. They are already presently compelled to build low cost houses/flats, why not extend it to medium cost? The quality of these medium cost must however be better than that of the lower cost and 3 bedroom units must be of liveable size of at least 1300 square feet.
I'm sleepy.
A 400,000 loan over 25 years will yield a monthly instalment of 2,577.21 per month. The PM expects people earning 3,000 (gross) to spend 85% of their salary on house instalments? What would this people eat?
Okay, 400,000 may be a bit steep. What about 300,000? A 25 year, 100% loan @ 6% p.a., the monthly instalment comes up to 1,932.90, if approved will leave the applicant with less than 1,000 to spend on everything else.
200,000? Same tenure and rate will cost the house buyer 1,288.60 per month which sounds more affordable-ish. But a 200,000 house in the Klang Valley is either of very low quality or very-very far from civilisation.
The truth is, there are a lot of people earning RM3,000 or less a month but decent houses costing less than 200,000 is scarce. I doubt the PM knows that.
How do we ensure that the young and the low income population gets the opportunity to own houses?
Maybe the government can offer discounts to first time buyers, regardless of race, if they can prove that; (1) they (both the husband and wife) have never bought a house before, (2) their household income is RM3,000 or less.
The government can (should) force developers to build more medium cost houses. They are already presently compelled to build low cost houses/flats, why not extend it to medium cost? The quality of these medium cost must however be better than that of the lower cost and 3 bedroom units must be of liveable size of at least 1300 square feet.
I'm sleepy.
No comments:
Post a Comment