SHAH ALAM, 26 Oct: The Selangor government is committed to build more affordable homes (RMM) to meet the needs of the people to own their own homes at a reasonable price, said the Exco of Housing, Building Management and Urban Living, Iskandar Abdul Samad.

This is because the Selangor government is attentive to the ability of the people of this country to own their own homes at the lowest price compared to other countries.

He said that until now, the state government has drawn up several measures to ensure that the desire is met.

“Among the terms we have imposed upon any developer who wants to develop a project on land with an area of 10 acres or 5 acres in the Klang Valley, they are required to provide 30% to 40% of the project for RMM (Selangorku Homes) at a price of RM250 and below.

“The aim is certainly to ensure that the low-income and middle-income earners own homes,” he told Selangor Kini.

For the record, in studies conducted by academics, as well as local and international research institutions, it shows that 85.1 percent of the middle class cannot afford homes priced at RM200000 and above offered in the 1Malaysia People’s Housing (Prima) scheme compared to only 15.1 percent of the same group who can afford it.

Meanwhile, a credit capacity study found that 75.9 percent of the people are not able to buy homes priced RM250,000 and above, and 52,000 cannot afford to buy homes over the price of RM150,000 while the value of property in urban and suburbs are soaring.

A demographic comparison study on the capability to own homes in Malaysia, Singapore, Japan and the United States, based on the median salary also showed that the houses in Malaysia is most unaffordable for Malaysians.

“The income of the people in this country is not in line with the increase of cost. Goods are becoming more expensive but the income is still the same. That is why the central government does not have an accurate mechanism to be used to ensure that the prices of houses are low.

“In Selangor, the state government injects a lot of funds using cash reserves to implement the RMM, thus ensuring that most of the people own their own homes,” he explained.

Prior to this, the Selangor government targeted the construction of 40,000 RMM in the next five years (2013-2018) through the Selangorku Homes programme.

The Selangor government has also allocated RM100 million using state cash reserves to implement projects like this, as announced during the tabling of the Budget 2014.

The Affordable Housing project, known as the Selangorku Homes, is being built through the Selangor Housing and Property Board (LPHS) and it will provide the opportunity to the people of Selangor, especially those with low to middle income, to own their own homes.

For Phase 1 of the Selangorku RMM, it will be built in Sungai Sering in Hulu Klang, involving 2,496 units and it has already started and going smoothly.

For the next project LPHS will start the building the foundations of 1,800 affordable housing units in Shah Alam, involving Section U1 Glenmarie and Section 35, involving 24.7 acres of land.

According the plans, the Selangorku Homes will be completed in 2018.

NS