Home prices in Sarawak’s urban areas are already too high for the average Malaysian, according to Housing Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg.
For instance, two-storey terrace houses and semi-detached flats in Kuching are priced from RM300,000 and RM500,000 respectively. And developers attributed the significant price hike to the spiralling cost of land and construction materials.
“But I think the proportion of the increase (in building costs) is not that huge. An increase of almost 200 percent in house prices is not reasonable,” he said.
As such, the state government of Sarawak plans to build more affordable housing projects, with the help of various agencies such as the 1Malaysia People’s Housing (PR1MA), National Housing Department and Syarikat Perumahan Malaysia Bhd (SPNB).
“By increasing the number of houses in the market with these agencies, we believe we can bring down prices.”
“This will be RM200,000 and below for two-storey terrace houses, and for semi-detached houses, we will try to sell from RM300,000 to RM350,000, ” Johari noted, adding that the low-cost houses will be built over the next three years.
However, his ministry still needs to have its own land bank so that these houses can be sold within that price range.
Farah Wahida, Editor of PropertyGuru, wrote this story. To contact her about this or other stories email farahwahida@propertyguru.com.my
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