The Ministry of Housing and Local Government targets to establish a single entity that will oversee the provision of affordable housing by year-end.

In fact, it had already identified six agencies which will be streamlined under the entity. They are 1Malaysia People's Housing Programme (PR1MA), Syarikat Perumahan Negara Bhd, UDA Holdings Bhd, Housing Project for the Hardcore Poor (PPRT), the 1Malaysia Housing Project for Civil Servants (PPA1M) and Federal Territories Affordable Housing (Rumawip), said National Housing Department Director-General Jayaselan Navaratnam at the Affordable Housing Conference 2018.

He noted that the ministry is also working with National Property Information Centre, Bank Negara Malaysia, Real Estate Housing Developers Association (REHDA) as well as other groups specialised in the real estate industry.

"We are working to sort it out by this August then we will do due diligence and hope it can come into execution somewhere around the end of this year.”

Nonetheless, the department will need time to study the entire structure of each agency before it can decide on whether it will merge or segmentise them into various types of development, he said.

He also assured government employees that there will be no retrenchment in these agencies, albeit some may be redeployed.

Meanwhile, Jayaselan revealed that the ministry mulls setting up a price threshold for affordable housing based on different regions.

"We are suggesting RM300,000 as the threshold while REHDA is suggesting RM500,000, but let us work and see which one is the most suitable one. We are looking at a mechanism based on region instead of state.”

Currently, the ministry considers homes priced at RM300,000 and below as affordable, which is applicable nationwide.

REHDA has recently suggested for each state to have its own price threshold for affordable homes, with RM500,000 as the ceiling for affordable houses in Kuala Lumpur.