KUALA LUMPUR: There is currently no standard formula on sale of unsold luxury homes to foreigners, said Zuraida Kamaruddin (pix).
The Housing and Local Government Minister told Dewan Rakyat the price of luxury homes for foreigners is a state matter with states having differing thresholds.
“Each state decides the threshold price for the homes that a foreigner can purchase, which is decided by their State Economic Planning Unit (Upen).
“The price that they decided is not based on a comprehensive study. The ministry is hoping for a big data centre in the construction industry to give an integrated statistic so we can have a more accurate projection based on price, location and such. This will ensure that we will no longer have any overhang,” said Zuraida in her reply to Tan Sri Annuar Musa (Ketereh-BN).
Annuar asked if it was her ministry which had proposed lowering the threshold for foreigners to own luxury homes.
Currently, the threshold in Selangor is RM2 million for foreign buyers. Perak, Sarawak, Johor, Malacca, Terengganu, Pahang, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya, Negri Sembilan, Perlis, Sabah, Kelantan and Malacca have priced their threshold at RM1 million.
Penang has set an RM2 million threshold for homes on the island and RM1 million for its mainland residential properties in Seberang Prai.
Annuar pointed out that in Budget 2020, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng had announced a threshold reduction to RM600,000 per unit and voiced his concern and worry of the serious implication in allowing outsiders to purchase homes at such a low price.
Zuraida said this was only a proposal from the finance minister and that currently, only 0.4% or 398 foreigners’ own homes that were priced at RM1 million and above. She added that the property overhang is a serious problem and the RM600,000 threshold is to allow for better cashflow in the country.
In her reply to a supplementary question from Steven Choong (Tebrau-PH), Zuraida said the nearly RM100 billion worth of unsold residential properties was worrying.
“If unsold and left abandoned, Malaysia will look like a country famous for abandoned homes. This is why under the Home Ownership Campaign (HOC), we have successfully helped sell 21,000 units worth RM13.44 billion in the first six months and we will extend it to the end of the year.
“There are also requests to extend the HOC till 2020. This is our efforts to ensure that luxury homes will be sold to its target market,” said Zuraida.
