Can Malaysia’s National Affordable Housing Policy Guarantee Housing Affordability of Low-Income Households?

Jian Liu and Huay Ying Ong
Additional contact information
Jian Liu: School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Haidian District, Beijing 100084, China
Huay Ying Ong: School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Haidian District, Beijing 100084, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 16, 1-19

Abstract: Housing affordability is a long-held issue in Malaysia, and housing policies have been implemented for low-income households over the years. However, there is a contradiction that housing affordability of low-income households has not been met, while the bulk of affordable housing is still vacant. In 2019, Malaysia enacted the National Affordable Housing Policy (DRMM) which was intended to improve housing affordability for low-income groups. This paper aims to answer why Malaysia’s long-term implementation of affordable housing policies cannot guarantee housing affordability, and whether the DRMM can effectively improve housing affordability as expected, by comparing the empirical factors of housing affordability. A literature review and a comparative analysis are adopted in the research. The paper concludes that low household income, high land price, construction cost and compliance cost, mismatch of supply and demand in terms of quantity, the instability of the national economy, low home financing ability, and incomprehensive housing planning have caused low housing affordability of low-income groups in Malaysia. The DRMM as anticipated can improve housing affordability by supplying affordable housing more precisely, lowering housing costs, and improving home financing ability. However, the exclusion of household income and economic factors may cause the ineffectiveness of the DRMM in improving housing affordability for low-income households.

Keywords: housing affordability; housing policy; affordable housing; Malaysia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/8841/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/16/8841/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:16:p:8841-:d:610267

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().