Up to 7,000 house buyers stand to benefit from the First House Deposit Financing Scheme (MyDeposit) which offers a 10% incentive on the sale price or a maximum of RM30,000, whichever is lower.

National Housing Department director-general Datuk Mohamad Yusoff Ghazali said 1,046 completed applications had been received since application for the scheme was opened on April 6, The deadline is June 30.

He said the highest applications received were from Selangor followed by Putrajaya, Johor and Penang in the one week since applications were opened.

“We give the public until the end of June and the incentive is given to those qualified based on first come, first served basis,” he told a media briefing on the MyDeposit scheme yesterday.

He said the department would apply to the government to increase the allocation if the scheme sees a high demand from the people.

MyDeposit is a specific product which was announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak on 23 Oct 2015 to ease the financial burden in providing deposits for the purchase of a first house with an allocation of RM200 million provided by the government.

The scheme is coordinated by the Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government Ministry via the National Housing Department for the purchase of every first house costing RM500,000 and below.

Mohamad Yusoff said the scheme which targeted the M40 group with gross income of RM3,000 to RM10,000 a month would help the people to boost their capability and accessibility to own their own homes.

“In fact, the scheme is in the form of an incentive whereby the deposit is paid by the government directly to the developers for new projects or lawyers for the purchase of secondary houses and need not be repaid by the buyers.”

However, he said the government had stipulated that the houses bought via the scheme could not be sold or rented out for 10 years.

He said the application for the scheme is open to qualified Malaysians, aged 21 and above and could be made online by opening an account at http://ehome.kpkt.gov.my.

“We expect it will take a month to process every application and the offer letter to the buyer whose application is approved will be given as early as the end of this month.”