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KUALA LUMPUR: A watchdog for house buyers has asked banks to be more lenient in giving out loans to new home buyers by considering the additional household income earned.
Real Estate and Housing Developers Association (Rehda) past president Ng Seing Liong said some home businesses did not provide payslips.
“Teachers give part-time tuition. But what they earn is not reflected in their payslip. If teachers declare they give part-time tuition, banks should consider.
“A husband can earn RM3,000 a month and his wife can look after two babies at home. Each baby’s fee is RM800. That is RM4,600 per month household income.
“Banks should consider such cases,” he said during a talk at the Malaysia Property Expo 2017 (Mapex 2017) in Mid Valley Mega Mall here.
At the moment, he said banks rely on payslips when deciding on the housing loan quantum.
Ng, who is also the organising chairperson for Mapex, said banks should not be too stringent with potential owners who can afford the 30% downpayment to buy houses.
“If they can afford to pay 30% of the total amount, they can afford to pay for the house loan,” he said.
Ng also advised participants at the talk, titled “Affordability and Connectivity”, not to choose houses where they need to be behind the wheel for more than an hour a day to commute to work.
They should preferably also not need to commute using public transport for more than two hours a day to go to work, he added.
“If it takes anything above that, the quality of life is compromised.
“For those using public transport, the walking distance should not be more than 10 minutes’ walk to the rail station, or they should choose places with an efficient feeder bus service.”
Another speaker, Pretam Singh, a legal adviser, said there should be laws to control house prices.
He said prices of houses could also be controlled as the various states now have different prices.
“(At the moment), every state has its own criteria to fix prices without any legislation.”
He also told house buyers to read the finer print found at the bottom of advertisements. This contains the developer’s licence number, developer’s contact details and prices of homes.
He said the information would prove useful and would be an added protection for the buyers in case there are issues.
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