KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 21): The Real Estate and Housing Developers' Association Malaysia (Rehda) has called on the government to reconsider its ruling of freezing approvals for shopping complexes, offices, serviced apartments and condominiums priced above RM1 million to curb the oversupply situation.

In a statement today, Rehda said for certain areas in the country where land prices are high, building properties priced below RM1 million is impractical.

"Furthermore, in certain locations across the city, there are still demand for high-end properties and free market should prevail," it said, adding that it wants to seek further clarification from the authorities on the new ruling.

Rehda also said since the implementation of various property cooling measures in 2014, not many developers have undertaken development of properties priced above RM1 million.

It opined that the main reason for such oversupply is the mismatch in supply and demand.

"As the voice for private developers in Malaysia, Rehda has always advocated the need for a comprehensive data to establish the demand and supply of properties in the right location. The availability of the data will help give a more accurate picture of where demands are located the most, and which areas require less, thus preventing oversupply," it explained.

Hence, the association calls for the government, particularly Bank Negara Malaysia, National Property Information Centre and the Ministry of Urban Wellbeing, Housing and Local Government to work together in utilising and streamlining the data available.

"These timely data will tremendously assist developers and relevant industry players in making proper and informed decisions in regards to their development projects," it said.

Rehda also pointed out that despite the income per capita of Malaysians in general improving by about 46% since 2010, this is not reflected in the disposable income and purchasing power of the average Malaysians due to rising cost of living.

"This is the fundamental reason why many Malaysians cannot afford to purchase property as their household debt is high," it said.

On top of that, Rehda also urged for more incentives to attract more private developers to build affordable housing, reduce unnecessary compliance cost to help lower developers' cost of doing business, and remove restrictions on unsold completed properties for all types of properties.

"Stamp duty waiver, especially for buyers of the affordable housing category, would also go a long way in assisting purchasers to buy. In addition, Rehda also supports the proposal to repurpose completed office space and retail lots as the move may be able to help mitigate the high number of the said property segments," it said.