Houses priced up to RM165,060 are considered affordable to a median Malaysian household.

This was highlighted by Deputy Finance Minister Datuk Othman Aziz at the 2017 Budget Focus Group Meeting on "Accelerating the Supply of Affordable Housing" here today.

At the meeting he cited the "Median Multiple" methodology developed by Demographia International and recommended by the World Bank and the United Nations to evaluate urban housing markets, where a house is considered affordable if a household can finance it with less than three times its annual household income.

In his talking points at the focus group meeting, Othman pointed out that only 21 percent of new housing projects launched in Malaysia were priced below RM250,000 in 2014, since developers are attracted to higher-end properties priced above half a million.

"Affordable housing is a basic necessity that helps to create strong and stable communities, with better economic, education and health outcomes for individuals, families, and communities," he said.

Apart from the inadequate supply of affordable houses, several other issues related to housing were discussed, including slow implementation of Industrial Building System (IBS) and slow adoption of green technology, he said.

"While affordable housing initiatives by the government have gathered some momentum, the current level of house-building in the affordable housing segment has not been sufficient to meet the demand," he said.

"The worsening shortfall in housing supply reflected the mismatch between the pace of growth in the supply of new houses and the net increase in the number of household, particularly in the past five years," he added.

Taking into cognizance of the need to provide adequate affordable and quality housing for the rakyat, the Government under the 11th Malaysia Plan, would continue to play a major role in meeting the housing needs of targeted groups in urban and rural areas, he said.

To improve the planning and development of affordable housing, he said an integrated database accessible to all relevant stakeholders would be established to ensure housing supply matched demand according to locality, price and target groups.

A series of focus group meetings were held after the 2017 Budget Consultation chaired by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak on June 16, themed "Accelerating Growth, Ensuring Fiscal Prudence, Enhancing Well-Being of the Rakyat".