KUALA LUMPUR, March 1 — Budget 2023’s focus on home ownership will benefit first-time homebuyers and support the development of affordable housing, said Juwai IQI.

In a statement today, co-founder and group chief executive officer Kashif Ansari said the revised budget includes several initiatives that, combined, will involve more than RM2.2 billion to be spent on improving existing housing stock quality – either through renovation and repairs or new construction.

“We support the government’s plans to improve housing stock,” said Khasif, adding that the measures will result in the construction of more than 35,000 new houses for lower-income Malaysians and 7,000 for the armed forces.

The various initiatives include refurbishing houses in rural areas, fixing lifts in low-cost strata housing, and building and refurbishing housing for members of the armed forces.

There are also new funds for the People’s Housing Programme (PPR), the Rumah Mesra Rakyat Programme, and Malaysian Public Housing Projects.

Khasif also said that exempting buyers from stamp duty eliminates one of the difficulties of home ownership.

“The stamp duty exemption is important because these taxes reduce buyers purchasing power and discourages people from upgrading or downsizing,” he said.

The government has decided that the economy will benefit more from an extension of full stamp duty exemption for houses up to RM500,000 until the end of 2025.

Meanwhile, the stamp duty exemption rate will be increased by half to 75 per cent for houses valued up to RM1 million.

On housing credit guarantee for gig workers, he said an allocation to help them obtain mortgages has been raised to 20,000 borrowers and RM5 billion, the statement said.

He said this is vital. Without this help, this would prevent home ownership, which is “the safest and most proven strategy of building wealth and security”. The number of gig workers locked out of the housing market will rise, he said.

“There are more than four million gig workers in Malaysia, and these individuals usually have no fixed income. That makes it hard for them to obtain a traditional mortgage from a bank to buy a house,” said Khasif.

Hence, budgetary measures on housing bring some degree of stability to the market but do not significantly change the pre-existing trends.

He also said that both prices and unsold stock will improve for the rest of the year. Its 2023 forecast is unchanged with transition activities in the residential market to strengthen with a three per cent rise this calendar year.

“Developers with attractive new projects will successfully launch them as both local and foreign buyers return to display suites,” he said. — Bernama