The National Housing Department, under the Ministry of Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government, hopes the government will approve an additional 10,000 units of affordable housing under the My Home Scheme in the upcoming Budget 2016.

Director Murali Jayabalan said the additional houses could meet the rising demand of affordable housing among Malaysians.

Last year, the government approved 30,000 units. These are the units for those who have signed the sales and purchase agreements.

“This year we hope that another 10,000 units will be approved,” he said at Malaysian Economic Association and Standard Chartered Bank forum on ‘Does Greater Prosperity Come with Less Housing Affordability’ today.

Khazanah Research Institute (Khazanah Research) managing director Datuk Charon Mokhzani said there is an important need to bridge the gap between household income and house prices.

Currently, the median household income is rising in tandem with the property price over the last couple of years.

But based on our research (Making Housing Affordable by Khazanah Research), we found that the property prices in urban areas such as Kuala Lumpur and Penang is seriously unaffordable.

According to the Department of Statistics Malaysia, currently there are 7.3 million houses in the country.

However, according to National Property Information Centre (NAPIC), there are 4.3 million houses at the moment.

The three million unit difference is because NAPIC only takes into account houses that built after 1970s and until payment of stamp duty is fully paid, said Charon.

The current population of Malaysia is about 30 million. So there is a need for more houses but affordable ones.

Charon added that there there is a serious need to find ways where new properties are built efficiently at lower cost.