According to an online article, the Malaysian Institute of Architects (PAM) said that today any family-style housing schemes are no longer feasible. Developers or social housing providers should start moving into smaller units to make it more affordable. This is because the current market is already too high-priced. PAM President Ar Chan Seong said that the private developers have started to move towards these one-bedroom units and studio apartments and thus the government affordable housing schemes must also move towards the same direction. He further elaborated and explained that due to the high cost of living today as well as the very high property price, the millennials could only afford smaller units so that its more affordable to them.
There were no mention of what was termed affordable but for me, affordable meant property prices below RM500,000 for KL and below RM350,000 for Selangor. Of course, these two prices is pretty hard to come by for the millennials or the younger Gen-Yers. The reason I say so is because today, majority of these millennials or even the younger Gen-Yers LOVE to stay where more action is. Example, huge regional malls, nearer to where all their friends love to stay as well as near to their office / working place. Any area further away than 10 kilometres is considered far and please do not even try to convince them of places further away than 20 kilometres. Fortunately, what PAM said may be true because if they want the affordable prices mentioned, perhaps a smaller unit would give them this chance. Do note that these small units, even though the number of units are high, the price per sf is also very high, typically RM800 psf or higher.
However, is the situation really so dire that people who are single or the millennials should now think of buying ever smaller units and for the developers to build much smaller units so that they can build more units and be able to sell them? The singles could not afford bigger units and thus developers should not build the bigger units? Sometimes I really do not understand why must everyone push the singles to buy smaller units. Is it true that these smaller units would allow them to sell higher next time and thus they can use the profits to buy a bigger unit? Well, some of these 500sf units are already RM500,000 or higher, today. If I am single, I am certainly not going to pay ever more higher for such a small unit. So, who would the owners of these small units be selling to in the future? I wish them all the best.
written on 10 Apr 2015
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