The quality of affordable houses in the country is still not up to standard, said the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) Malaysia.

Development Sector Senior General Manager Ahmad ‘Asri Abdul Hamid said of the 700 projects assessed to date by the CIDB under the Quality Assessment System in Construction (Qlassic), the majority were medium and medium high cost housing undertakings.

“Based on the assessment, the developers involved in this segment are the ones approaching us, and not those charged with affordable housing,” he told reporters after media workshop on Qlassic today.

He said that the agency is also in talks with the 1Malaysia People’s Housing Scheme (Pr1ma) to evaluate the affordable housing projects.

“It is still at a discussion stage,” he said.

Ahmad also said the 237 projects evaluated for just this year were mostly residential projects as compared to non-residential, public amenities, among others.

“Most are residential due to market demand and for the Malaysian standard, a unit that is rated above 70% is considered all right.Anything below this, needs to be improved,” he added.

He noted that 30% of projects evaluated so far had scored below 70%.

Meanwhile, Ahmad said the Qlassic assessment evaluates the quality of a project and the requirements of structural, architectural works, mechanical and electrical aspects. This is alongside the external works.

“For example, the design of building need to be standardised, regardless of whether it is a low, medium or high cost house,” he added.

He also urged house buyers to understand the standards for housing and specification.

“They should immediately inform the developer for any rectification when the house is complete.

“People have the culture of acceptance and ignore defects found in the house. They should instead file a complain with the developer and rectify defects, as it will save them the cost of repairs in future.

“This should be done before the keys are handed over,” Ahmad said. – Bernama

Source: The Sun Daily

BM Park Lane, a mixed development by Rank City Sdn. Bhd. (a subsidiary of NYH Group & Companies), within the established township of Bukit Mertajam. This development is strategically located next to Jalan Ciku, opposite Ng Yam Huat food court. It is just a few hundreds meters away from Sunway Wellesley, a mixed development scheme by Sunway Property Group.

The residential component comprises a 21-storey tower, with 278 condo units. It will comes with wide range of facilities, which includes but not limited to swimming pools, 24-hour security, gym, children playground and more.

** This project is now taken over by Crystal Faber Sdn. Bhd. Click here to find out more **

Facilities:

• 24-hour security
• Lush Greenery Landscape
• Sauna Room
• Yoga (Open concept space)
• Gymnasium
• Game Room
• Multi Function & Community Hall
• Child Care Room
• Outdoor Children Playground
• BBQ Pit Area
• Tai Chi & Foot Reflexology
• Walking & Jogging Path
• and etc

Property Name: BM Park Lane
Location : Bukit Mertajam, Penang
Property Type : Condominium and Shop offices
Total Units: 278 (condo), 27 (shop offices)
Built-up Area: 947 sq.ft – 1,513 sq.ft.
Tenure: Freehold
Developer : Rank City Sdn. Bhd.
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My attention was captured by a news entitled “The only place where housing is easily affordable” when reading The Times, a UK paper recently.

While I had expected some light on affordable housing solutions, I was surprised to find out that Copeland is the only area in England where house prices are less than three times the average annual salary of its residents.

According to the same article that quoted a research by UK Trade Union Congress (TUC), the number of “easily affordable” local authority areas across England has fallen from 72 to just one over the last 16 years. In prime areas, house prices reach as high as 32 times the average earnings of their residents.

Frances O’ Grady, the General Secretary of TUC which represents 6.2 million working people in the UK, called for an “ambitious programme” to bring the prices of homebuilding under control.

This resonates with the earlier comments made by the governor of the Bank of England (BoE) Mark Carney who said in May that the only long-term way to effectively bring down home prices is to build more homes.

In the UK, 63.8 million people lived in 26.4 million homes in 2012. This works out to about 2.4 persons per house.

There were calls for more homes even with such healthy ratio. Australia, which has a population of 21.5 million in 2013, has 9.1 million occupied houses or 2.4 persons per house.

At the recent World Class Sustainable Cities 2014 Conference, Kerry Doss from Brisbane City Council showed a slide presentation of persons per household over the past century.

As far back as 1927, Australia was already four persons per household. These made me reflect on the situation of our home country, especially since we too aspire to be a developed nation.

According to National Property Information Centre (NAPIC), we have a total of 4.7 million homes in the fourth quarter of 2013. As NAPIC does not track rural homes, we assume that only urbanites were taken into account in the survey.

This accounts for 70% of our 30 million population or 21 million people. Therefore, on average, there are 4.4 to 6.4 persons per household in our country. T

his is a poorer ratio compared with Australia in 1927. This means we need to build four million to 7.8 million more houses to match the same ratio as the UK or Australia.

While we are aware that the Government aims to build one million affordable homes over a five-year timeline since last year, we still have quite a fair bit to catch up.

This is because we have only managed to build about 73,000 residential units per year for the last three years.

Under Budget 2015, it is encouraging to note that the Government plans to build 80,000 units under PR1MA and 63,000 units under another housing programme. This will bring the total planned units to 143,000. This figure is still way too low and the Government should consider building at least 200,000 units a year to meet the vision of one million affordable homes.

There should be a constant effort to track the progress of home-building. It is important to realise the goal of housing the nation by ensuring yearly targets are met.

Some of the measures that the Government can consider were recommended in my earlier articles.

They included freeing up state land for housing, purchasing agriculture land for development, building houses in rural areas and connecting them to the cities via public transports, as well as expediting the approval process to supply more houses to the market.

In addition to supplying more affordable homes to bring down prices of homes, there are also other factors to ensure that the rakyat have a roof over their heads.

In the same-mentioned article in The Times, Frances O’ Grady commented that, “Housing affordability isn’t just about house prices; decent wages are just as important.” I think it makes good sense and generates more food for thought for our nation.

>> FIABCI Asia-Pacific regional secretariat chairman Datuk Alan Tong has over 50 years of experience in property development. He is also the group chairman of Bukit Kiara Properties.

Source: StarProperty.my

Kagan: ‘They are looking at Malaysia because of its legal and physical infrastructure, geographical location, capability to undertake research and development activities and skilled workforce.

Malaysia is now the choice location for US companies that want to diversify in Asia.

Deputy chief of mission of the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur Edgard D. Kagan toldStarBiz that there were also companies in China that wanted another location in Asia to set up a platform.

“They are looking at Malaysia because of its legal and physical infrastructure, geographical location, capability to undertake research and development (R&D) activities and skilled workforce,” he said.

Also present at the interview were commercial officer Paul V Oliva, economic affairs counselor Andrew R Herrup and public affairs counselor Frank Whitaker.

Kagan said Malaysia, specifically Penang, was now being seen as a choice location for R&D activities.

“We can see an increasing number of US companies that have chosen Penang as a destination for their knowledge-based content here, taking advantage of the skilled workforce and infrastructure,” Kagan added.

Kagan said over the past few years, there has also been a trend of Asian companies looking to the United States to invest rather than just as a place to sell.

“They have found that doing business in the United States can be very cost-effective due to the structural benefits and the market size, especially when the cost of doing business in Asia has risen over the years,” he said.

Meanwhile, Oliva said there were currently some 34 Malaysian companies in the United States negotiating to purchase rights to distribute American films and television programmes and talking to production companies to co-produce films. Oliva said the United States was Malaysia’s fourth-largest trading partner after Singapore, China and Japan.

“Malaysia is the United States’ 22nd largest trading partner,” he said.

Oliva said the top US products to Malaysia included integrated circuits, aircraft and parts, telephone equipment, semiconductors and light-emitting diodes, and scientific equipment.

In 2013, the value of bilateral trade between Malaysia and the United States was at US$44.2bil (RM147.98bil).

The sale of US goods and services to Malaysia was at US$15.5bil, while the export of Malaysian goods and services to the United States was at US$28.7bil.

Source: StarProperty.my

Bank Negara is expected to keep the Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) unchanged at 3.25% in light of the risks and uncertainties surrounding the global economy.

Bank Negara’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), which is meeting for the sixth and last time for this year, will decide on the OPR today.

Of the 22 economists polled by Bloomberg, 21 expected the MPC meeting to conclude with a “no hike” decision. Only one economist expected a hike of 25 basis points (bps) in the country’s benchmark interest rate to 3.5%.

“Given the lack of sustained growth momentum externally, the outlook for Malaysia’s export performance also hangs in the balance,” said RAM Ratings Sdn Bhd head of research Kristina Fong.

“Considering the degree of openness of the country’s economy, this will ultimately contribute to some downside risk to domestic GDP (gross domestic product) growth prospects,” she explained.

Fong noted that leaving the OPR at the current accommodative level would be conducive for Malaysia’s growth resilience, which was an important consideration, given the impending implementation of new policies and regulations, such as the Goods and Services Tax.

Source: StarProperty.my