House prices depend on many cost components: UEM Sunrise

KUALA LUMPUR: Despite the abolishment of the goods and services tax (GST), there are other costs components contributing to high house prices, according to UEM Sunrise Bhd managing director Anwar Syahrin Abdul Ajib.

He said these include development cost, premiums and land prices which has to be taken into account.

Some cost components have seen a hike hence increasing the price of the development.

“We would like to reduce the prices of houses so that it becomes more affordable for more people but from a cost perspective there are various different cost components in development,” he told reporters at the strategic partnership inking ceremony between UEM Sunrise and GrabPay.

If there are savings, we can pass it to our customers but like I said there are other costs that has come into force – for example, development charges, premiums, so those things have come in and that affects the prices. Our land price is very high and when development charges come in, it can be up to 25%... that adds up to all the cost,” he said.

On the implementation of the sales and services tax, Anwar said he has to research before commenting on it.

The property developer will scrutinise its cost in accordance to the announcement of Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng, who urged developers to reduce the prices of houses.

He was recently quoted as saying that he hoped to receive positive response from the housing industry by month-end to reduce property prices.

On a separate note, Anwar said that UEM is looking to launch projects for the remaining of the year with a gross development value of between RM350 million and RM500 million.

UEM Sunrise yesterday inked a strategic partnership with Grab Malaysia to enable instore cashless payment via the e-hailing service provider’s, GrabPay platform.

This will be made available for retailers and merchants at Publika and malls in Iskandar Puteri.

As part of the partnership, UEM Sunrise will assist Grab to ensure that a significant number of their tenants at the two locations adopt GrabPay as their preferred cashless payment method.

For starters, GrabPay is looking to enable at least 60% of the 284 merchants in Publika to utilise its platform.