By Santtana Looganden
santtana@mystar.com.my

PETALING JAYA: The federal government’s allocation for schemes to help first-time buyers benefits both buyers and developers, but it remained insufficient to encourage home ownership in the country, said Real Estate and Housing Developers Association Malaysia (Rehda) president Datuk Seri FD Iskandar Mohamed Mansor.

Speaking at a property summit recently, he urged the government to increase funding for housing schemes in the upcoming budget.

Iskandar said the government should consider implementing a cheaper interest rate and longer loan tenure for transactions for first-time house buyers and for buyers of the properties below RM500,000.

Meanwhile, Khong and Jaafar managing director Elvin Fernandez said the local property market needs a better flow of quality information to become more efficient and facilitate free market mechanism.

He said it is difficult to obtain information on transactions within the property industry, resulting in the property market being more “mysterious” compared to the stock exchange.