BY ZAZALI MUSA

Nice houses: Mohd Rafi (second from right), Hoe (right), Johor Rehda deputy chairman Wong Kuen Kong (second from left) and Rehda Johor organising chairman Simon Heng Kwang Hock at the launch of Johor Mapex 2016 in Johor Baru.

JOHOR BARU: Members of the Johor Real Estate and Housing Developers Association (Rehda) will continue engaging with the commercial banks to secure housing loans for eligible house buyers.

Johor Rehda branch chairman Hoe Mee Ling hoped the engagement between both parties would able to solve the issue of eligible house buyers who failed to get bank loans to finance their purchase.

She said at the same time, developers would also educate and brief the prospective house buyers on the disbursement of the loans by banks and why their applications were rejected.

“We (developers) will do our best to assist prospective house buyers especially first-timers in securing housing loans from banks,’’ Hoe told a press conference last Friday.

She said this following the launch of the Johor Malaysian Property Expo 2015 at the Johor Baru City Square shopping complex by the state assistant secretary (housing division) Mohd Rafi Abdullah.

The three-day event saw a participation of 33 developers offering residential, commercial and industrial properties worth about RM11.2bil with prices ranging RM500,000 to RM3.5mil each.

Hoe said it was the prerogative of the banks when it comes to disbursing housing loans to buyers hoping banks would look at on a case-by-case basis instead of a blanket approval system.

“The property market in Iskandar Malaysia is unique as we have thousands of locals working in Singapore earning in Singapore dollar, hence a strong purchasing power,’’ she said.

Separately, Hoe said developers remained upbeat on the property outlook of Iskandar Malaysia with many reported encouraging sales in the first three months of 2016 especially the landed residential properties.

Meanwhile, Mohd Rafi said state authorities have received complaints from rejected first-time buyers who were qualified financially to buy affordable houses in Johor.

“Johor will assist them to get their loans as they are genuine buyers and not speculators,’’ he said the state government had approached Bank Negara to look into the matter.

Mohd Rafi said the state government had met central bank officials recently adding “something positive and good” was in store for qualified buyers of the affordable houses in Johor.

Under the Johor’s affordable housing project, each low-cost unit would be sold at about RM40,000 while affordable houses were prices at a maximum of RM150,000 each.

To allow more first-time house buyers to own houses, the state government had increased the qualifying monthly household income from RM6,000 to RM8,000.