Overview of Affordable Housing from Supply and Demand Context in Malaysia

Abstract

The increase in the number of rural populations migrated to the city has increased over the years. This led to the widespread of urbanisation in cities. As a developing country, this is also happening in major cities in Malaysia. In this regard, this also contributes to the needs of the residents to have affordable homes, especially in urban areas. Malaysia government is very serious in ensuring all its citizens towards owning their own homes. This can be seen clearly through the evolution of Malaysia's housing policy since the era of independence to the present. Therefore, this paper seeks to build theoretical understanding on affordable housing issues from supply and demand context. This was done based on findings by reviewing a thorough review of literature from local and global context pertaining to this issue. The findings from literature reveal that housing supply in Malaysia is leading by landed property development compare to high rise building. Most developers who developed the land with mixed development approach are having landed property housing for middle class and high-class income, while the high rise housing building is to cater the low income group. This could possibly become the main reasons for mismatch housing supply and demand in certain location. The conclusion from the literature help looking the issue of supply and demand mismatch from a broader view to help understand the underlying reason of housing supply by private sector as well as from the government sector. Furthermore, understanding Malaysian culture would also give an understanding on what are the factors that cause the buyer to buy a home.