31,661 Completed Houses in Malaysia Worth Up to RM20 Billion Remain Unsold

By Karissa Lund  •  25 Nov 2020 in News

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According to Harian Metro, a total of 31,661 units of completed houses worth RM20.03 billion remain unsold as of the first quarter of this year, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.

Housing and Local Government Minister Zuraida Kamarudin said the number saw an increase of 3.3% in numbers and 6.4% in value compared to the preceding year, where 30,664 units valuing RM18.82 billion were still on the market.

This is also despite the Home Ownership Campaign that was launched by the government in 2019 to encourage Malaysians to own homes.

A misreading by property developers in terms of the location of their developments, types of houses and prices were the main causes behind the excessiveness of unsold houses, Zuraida mentioned. Other issues include accessibility and failure to obtain bank loans.

To better address this situation, Zuraida said the ministry has set up a housing integrated management system that offers real-time information.  She added that since approvals on housing developments are done by the respective state governments and local councils, the ministry is not able to control the types of developments being approved.

She said, “We (ministry) can only control in terms of qualification and financial capability of the developers. But what we are trying to do is come up with a mechanism in which we provide developers applying for licences with advice on whether certain projects are suitable or otherwise, based on the location and price.”

Zuraida added that the ministry would also build a new big data system by next year to assist in providing “numbers and projections” to developers to assist them in planning their business model more comprehensively. However, she did not provide more details on this.

She mentioned all of this in reply to Datuk Ahmad Jazlan Yaakub’s (BN-Machang) question today in Parliament regarding the mechanism that will be implemented by the ministry to control developers from continuing to build housing projects that do not coincide with market needs and curb the excessiveness of unsold houses.