HOUSING prices in Sarawak are generally and slightly higher than the national median house, which is RM326,500 versus RM295,000 based on 2020 statistics due to several reasons, says Datuk Seri Dr Sim Kui Hian.
Deputy Premier Dr Sim, who is also Public Health, Housing and Local Government Minister, said that the Khazanah Research Institute’s median house prices were based on houses developed by private developers and did not include affordable housing developed by federal or state governments.
“For the Padungan assemblyman’s (Chong Chieng Jen) information, housing price is based on supply and demand.
“In Sarawak, as the former Deputy Minister of KPDNKK, commodity prices in Sarawak are generally higher when compared with Peninsular Malaysia due to logistics and transportation, and in Peninsular Malaysia, they have the economy of scale and size of the housing projects.”
He said this when delivering his winding-up speech at the DUN sitting on today.
“The median price of house is affected by a number of factors and in Sarawak, the inclination to have landed properties with a bigger land size, spacious green area and low density development.
“Hence, it is misleading to equate median house price with affordability and affordable housing.”
Dr Sim said the Sarawak government was well aware of the market situation, and as a responsible government, it had embarked vigorously for the provision of affordable housing to all spectra of income groups with various financial assistance schemes.
“Among others, policy of subdivision of private land and affordable houses with schemes such as like Spektra Lite, Spektra Medium, Putera, Housing Deposit Assistance Scheme (HDAS) and financing through Mutiara with very low interest rate from one to three per cent as well as a category that cannot get bank loans.”
He went on to say that the Premier had set a target of building 2,500 units of affordable housing.
“This includes affordable housing with the price range of RM90,000 to RM160,000. To date, we have 2,800 units at different stages of construction.”
In summary, he said that the state’s housing policies were very resilient to the housing market and had been affordable to people.
