Rehda president Datuk Fateh Iskandar Mohd Mansor: "Key challenges with regards consistency in policies, rising costs of compliances remain unresolved."

PETALING JAYA: Both property developers and buyers want to believe that the worse is over in the property sector but different risks, currency issues and the global environment challenges continue to weigh on the sector, says Real Estate and Housing Developers Association, Malaysia (Rehda).

"Developers continue to hold back on launches and buyers are not buying although there is demand," said Rehda president Datuk Fateh Iskandar Mohd Mansor.

Speaking at the 20th National Housing & Property Summit 2017 on Thursday, he pointed out the laudable macro economic numbers are not translated into real numbers.

Key challenges with regards consistency in policies, rising costs of compliances remain unresolved, he said.

With the Budget 2018 proposals to be announced on Oct 27, Fateh Iskandar urges the government to address the various issues and not to charge private developers the various infrastructure contributions, development charges and other costs which are at the end of the day passed on to house buyers.
The rising costs notwithstanding low cost houses are still priced between RM35,000 and RM42,000 today, the same price as 15 years ago, he said.

Affordable housing , which is different from low cost units are priced between RM80,000 and RM400,000 on a national basis, Fateh Iskandar  said.