Chew
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah Housing and Real Estate Developers Association (Shareda) has expressed hope for the extension of the Home Ownership Campaign (HOC) which is scheduled to end on May 31.
According to its outgoing president Datuk Chew Sang Hai, its counterpart in Peninsular Malaysia Real Estate & Housing Developers’ Association (Rehda) Malaysia has submitted a formal request to the Finance Ministry for the extension.
“We, Shareda, Rehda and Sheda (Sarawak Housing and Real Estate Developers) are requesting for an extension of at least another year,” Chew told reporters after Shareda’s annual general meeting at its office on Wednesday.
Chew added that the Malaysian Development Council is now in the midst of gathering data about the property situation throughout the country to support the request.
Meanwhile, Organising Chairman for HOC 2020-2021 in Sabah, Benny Ng said that out of the RM3 billion residential properties registered with Shareda for HOC 2020-2021, RM492 million worth of residential units were sold for the first 10 months.
“We hope the public can capitalise on this opportunity to own their home and hope the final figures could reach RM600 million when the campaign ends on May 31. We are optimistic about reaching the target as we found that 63 per cent of the HOC sales were recorded in the last four months starting from December 2020.
“This is obviously because the public can move more freely after the announcement of the EMCO (Enhanced Movement Control Order) in Sabah. This also allowed sales activities to be carried out and advertisement was broadcasted more efficiently,” Ng said.
Topographically 48 per cent units of these residential properties were sold in the East Coast of Sabah, meanwhile 52 per cent units were sold in the West Coast of Sabah, he said.
Shareda also found that 37 per cent of units sold are non-landed residential properties, while 63 per cent of units sold are landed residential properties which dominated the market.
“The property market is rebounding strongly for the past three to four months. HOC had also proven to be effective as stimulus to the economy. We hope the government will consider extending HOC further to benefit the rakyat,” Ng said.
He pointed out that the HOC covered registered residential properties with a value between RM300,000 and RM2.5 million and in Sabah, the properties must be registered with Shareda.
The Home Ownership Campaign 2020-2021 aims to encourage home ownership with few key incentives.
Stamp duty exemptions are given for residential properties which are sold during the period between June 1, 2020 to May 31, 2021.
Among the incentives were full stamp duty exemption till RM1 million, partial stamp duty exemption till RM2.5 million, exemption on stamping fee for Instrument of Loan amount covers 0.5 per cent of the loan agreement and 10 per cent house discount, except those subject to government price controls (including Sabah).