As we count the days until the long-awaited Budget 2023 to be announced on October 7th 2022, there are a few new aspects that we have added to our wishlist that encourage homebuying for the locals and foreigners, provide financial assistance for homebuyers, and reinvigorate the property market. 

The theme for Budget 2023 is Strengthening Recovery, Facilitating Reforms Towards Sustainable Socio-Economic Resilience of Keluarga Malaysia which shows a priority on uplifting the wellbeing of Malaysians, income and social protection, and reinforcing the nation’s resilience against future disasters. 

With that in mind, we wish to add a few items such as encouraging homeownership for the locals and foreigners, incentivising homebuyers by granting stamp duty exemption, providing financial aid for homeowners that are affected by environmental issues, and promoting green development for sustainable living.

Encourage Homeownership and Incentivise Homebuyers

With the current inflation and interest rates escalated presently, properties in Malaysia are increasingly becoming much harder to afford especially for the lower-income groups. Consequently, homeownership rates will significantly fall if further actions are not taken as soon as possible.

With hopes of boosting homeownership, the government should be urged to launch a new homebuyer initiative that involves new property developments as well as the sub-sale market to reach a wider mass of homebuyers and launch Sabah’s version of the MM2H programme that would attract foreigners to purchase a house in Sabah that offer different and better requirements compared to the federal’s MM2H requirements.

Some of the terms for the federal’s MM2H programme for those younger than 50 years old include a minimum of RM1.5 million in liquid assets, a minimum of RM40,000 offshore monthly income, and a fixed deposit account with a minimum of RM1 million.

Additionally, another way of promoting homeownership is to give incentives to potential homebuyers. Incentives like stamp duty exemption may benefit those who would like to ease their burden of paying fees for the instrument of transfer and loan agreement to purchase first homes. 

We applaud the government’s action of executing the Malaysia Home Ownership Initiative (i-Miliki) which offers stamp duty exemption. The requirements for i-Miliki include first-time homebuyers and those who purchased completed properties from the 1st of June 2022 to the 31st of December 2023. Properties that are priced at RM500,000 and below will be given a 100% stamp duty exemption while properties that are priced above RM500,000 will be given a 50% stamp duty exemption. However, with the rising inflation and interest rates, homebuyers have opted for renting houses as homebuyers are not able to afford to buy a house.

Provide Financial Aid and Promote Green Development

It is undeniable that the world is currently facing climate change and Malaysia is not one to avoid environmental issues easily such as severe floods, landslides, heatwaves and much more. As a result, it has affected the livelihood of the mass of people causing them to lose their homes, jobs, schools, and so on. The government should subsequently allocate emergency funds when environmental issues happen again to lessen the impact of the problems faced by the people.

Photo Source: Free Malaysia Today

In the first half of 2022, eight schools in Sabahan districts which include Beaufort, Penampang, Putatan, and Tenom had to be closed down due to severe floods which affected students and teachers. 

Long-term plans should also be implemented such as promoting green developments nationwide as our role to become more environmentally friendly. One way of stimulating the progress of green developments is by offering incentives to property developers to construct more green developments and to homebuyers who purchase green developments. 

For more information on the performance of Sabah’s real estate market for H1 2022, click here to find out more.

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