PM confident P2P framework can help achieve housing promise

SEMENYIH: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is confident that the property crowdfunding solution announced in the 2019 Budget can drive the building of one million houses in 10 years, as promised by Pakatan Harapan.

He said the scheme, the first of its kind, offered first-time housebuyers the chance to pay only 20 per cent to own a house while the remaining was borne by investors via a peer-to-peer (P2P) financing framework.

On Friday, Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng said the P2P financing framework, which would be regulated by the Securities Commission (SC), will go “live” in the first quarter of next year.

Asked on the safeguards that have been put in place by the government, Dr Mahathir said the risk for banks in lending money to housebuyers were very low.

“The amount to be borrowed is very small, so banks, of course, must use prudence in lending.

“But because this involves only a small amount of money, the borrower will have sufficient income to pay back the loan.

“The danger of people running away, not paying... if they run away, the house is empty, so you can occupy the house,” he said.

Dr Mahathir also said the government was committed to build one million houses, although it would not be easy with lots of unsold houses today, which were built at higher prices and beyond the affordability of the people.

“It is easy to make promises, especially when elections come, just about anything to get votes, but keeping promises is not the same as making them.

“One million is not a small number, but this is our promise,” he said.

Lim said the scheme was a risk worth taking by Pakatan Harapan to fulfil its promises in the election manifesto.

“When this idea was raised, we spent quite sometime studying it in detail because the prime minister liked the idea, and we find that it is workable,” he said.

He said the government would hold dialogues with SC and relevant bodies to work on the mechanism to execute the scheme.