Housing industry trapped in its own folly
LETTER | What is made out to be good news is not going to be any good. Truth be told, the RM22 billion property sale which will be held come March 2019 will be another hot-air balloon fall.
The truth is, a dwelling averaging RM300,000 requires a monthly salary of RM6,000.
Now tell me how many of the graduates who truly need a roof over their heads can afford an RM300,000 property, given a monthly pay packet of under RM6,000.
The pundits will retort, "What about joint incomes?"
And all the freebies like no stamp fees or free air-conditioning and the like, or even a free satay party while you shop - will these really make any difference? Come to think of it, no!
We are saddled with a privatised building and construction industry that has held citizens at ransom for far too long with political agendas at work.
The fact that developers are raking huge profits and becoming tycoons and oligarchs is a testimony to them ripping off the wage-earning citizen, who has even been told to take on two jobs to make ends meet.
Our entire national housing policy, just like the education system, has failed. You need courage to agree. All else is a bluff.
We lost the path to a progressive society of providing affordable, price-controlled housing schemes, ensuring every adult starting a new family can have a roof for themselves without having to cut back on their quality of living.
It clearly shows that sales pitches have stampeded the government into ignoring its national duty and moral obligation to ensure that everyone has a roof over their heads.
And the runaway property market is today more of a self-enrichment penchant that disguises the temptations of collecting huge rentals within the quickest time and even having guaranteed earnings that will pay off the bank loan with extras in your pocket.
Believe me, you can have all kinds of megasale carnivals. You can make all kinds of political promises and seeming announcements of "affordable" housing.
The truth is, discrimination, greed, profiteering, and privatisation of the building and housing industry will never give every citizen the right to own a desirable, affordable home without suffering risks.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
Learn from Rosmah lah. She started saving since young age so that she can buy multi-million jewellery !
Zuraida..please do your job. Use your brain. Not the UMNO type of brain.....the key problem are the BANKERS ! DONT GIVE OUT LOANS. Or reduce margins to only 50 % ....and you will see all these leeches automatically bringing house prices down. The first culprits and land owners and valuers...who use land as a commodity in a casino. Refer Jolo's buisness model. Second fella to makan besar are the local authorities. Semua mau makan free road, flyover, taman, bomba, police station etc etc...Third developer pumps all these amenities into these houses and inflates the prices gila gila..and BANKERS give out loans. Sure default. This time DONT bail banks out. Remember what you said in 1998 Daim....that that will be the last time the govt will be bailing banks out. DO IT...
In the 1970's when government housing loans for non-graduate salary scale staff were RM35,000, one could buy single storey S-D houses in the smaller towns like Kulim, Sg. Petani etc. at that price. God knows for what reason the loan limits were increased by almost 3 times to RM90,000 by the government in the 80's. When this happened, the same type house prices shot up to RM90,000 overnight. So who is responsible for the high house prices?? Who is making the huge profits? How are these profits distributed? It is the availability of loans for even overpriced houses that has raised house prices to benefit the developers. What is the actual cost of a RM200,000 house? What is the profit margin?
Are you sure you want to delete this comment?
This action cannot be undone.