KUALA LUMPUR: There should be a price control mechanism for residential properties to avoid the escalation of prices, suggested National House Buyers Association vice president Brig Gen (R) Datuk Goh Seng Toh (pix).
“We’re practising certain limit and price control when we dictate the prices of affordable houses and low cost houses so it’s a matter of extending that,“ he said during a panel discussion on “Housing in Malaysia: Policy Discourse” by Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) here today.
He said the country is stringent on controlling the prices of cooking oil and sugar, for example, but yet in the housing arena, it has allowed property developers to call the shots in setting house prices.
According to KRI’s latest publication “Rethinking Housing: Between State, Market and Society”, housing affordability worsened significantly between 2012 and 2014 as the housing supply does not cater to demand.
