You have a household income of RM6,000 a month. You want to buy a home. But how many newly launched properties are actually within your budget? A housing analysis by Khazanah Research Institute (KRI) shows why the search can be difficult.
Households earning below RM6,000 a month made up 41.3% of Malaysian households, yet only 9% of homes launched in 2024 were in the price range the analysis considered affordable for this group.
In simple terms, more than four in 10 households were looking at a market where fewer than one in 10 new homes fell within their broad affordability range.
Written by researcher Dr Nur Fareza Mustapha, the KRI paper looks at the gap between household incomes and new house prices. It also examines Kuala Lumpur, Johor and Penang, revealing very different situations.
The findings raise a question: are the homes being built priced for the people who live there?
What KRI Means By An Affordable Home
A home advertised as “affordable” may still feel expensive when you compare its price with your income.
To assess affordability, KRI uses a benchmark of three times a household’s yearly income.
For example, a household earning RM6,000 a month earns RM72,000 a year. Under this benchmark, an affordable home would cost around RM216,000. For a household earning RM8,000 monthly, the figure would be RM288,000.
This is a guide for comparing house prices with incomes. It does not mean a bank will approve a loan for that amount. Your debts, savings, loan terms and other expenses will also affect what you can manage.
Using this measure, the analysis found a clear gap at the lower end of the market. Households earning below RM3,000 monthly made up around 11% of households, but homes priced at RM100,000 or less accounted for just 2% of new launches.
Meanwhile, 52% of new launches were in higher price bands linked to the purchasing power of roughly 22% of households earning above RM12,000 a month.
There may be plenty of homes to browse, but far fewer that fit a modest budget.
KRI Finds A Wide Gap In Johor
Johor showed one of the sharpest differences between what households earned and what new homes cost.
According to KRI, more than 80% of homes launched in Johor in 2024 were priced above RM400,000. The analysis linked these price bands to households earning RM12,000 and above, which represented only 25.5% of households in the state.
At the lower end, just 16% of new launches were priced at RM300,000 or below.
The figures become more striking further up the price ladder. Homes in the RM600,000-and-above category made up 63% of new supply, while only 13.5% of Johor households fell into the corresponding highest income group.
Homes priced between RM700,001 and RM800,000 alone accounted for 21% of new launches. Another 17% cost more than RM1 million.
For families with smaller budgets, this means much of the new housing supply may be beyond reach before they even begin comparing locations or layouts.
However, KRI cautions that one year of figures cannot establish whether this is a lasting trend. More years of data are needed to understand whether Johor’s situation was unusual in 2024 or reflects a longer-running problem.
Penang’s Missing Homes Below RM200,000
In Penang, one finding stands out: the analysis recorded no new launches in the RM100,001 to RM200,000 price range in 2024.
This does not mean there were no homes available at those prices anywhere in Penang. Existing homes and resale properties were outside the scope of the new-launch figures.
Still, it shows a gap in the homes being added to the market.
The KRI analysis found that households earning below RM6,000 a month made up approximately 37% of households in Penang. Yet only 6% of new launches fell into the price bands considered affordable for them.
The difficulty extended to households earning more. Around 55% of households earned below RM8,000 monthly, but only 24% of newly launched homes were priced at RM300,000 or below.
Meanwhile, about half of new launches were in the RM400,000-and-above categories, linked in the analysis to the affordability range of roughly 22% of households.
A price ceiling for affordable housing can help set a target. But families still need enough homes to be built within that price range.
Kuala Lumpur Looks More Balanced, But Buying Is Still A Challenge
Kuala Lumpur presented a more balanced picture in the KRI analysis.
About 45% of homes launched in 2024 were priced at RM300,000 or below. Another 11% cost between RM300,001 and RM400,000.
Together, these categories made up 56% of new launches. Overall, the spread of new house prices was more closely matched to household incomes than in Johor or Penang.
That does not mean everyone in Kuala Lumpur could easily afford a home.
The paper also found that 22% of new launches cost more than RM900,000. Under the affordability benchmark, a RM900,000 home would correspond to a household income of RM25,000 a month.
There was also a limit to how closely this could be examined. The available income figures grouped all households earning RM15,000 and above together, making it difficult to see how many could comfortably afford the most expensive properties.
The city’s broader figures may look more balanced, but individual buyers can still face a difficult search.
More Homes Must Also Mean More Realistic Choices
The main message from KRI is straightforward: housing plans need to pay closer attention to what local households can afford.
A RM300,000 home places a very different burden on a family earning RM4,000 a month compared with one earning RM10,000. The same price label cannot tell the whole story across different locations.
The paper calls for closer checks on local incomes and house prices, along with more regular monitoring of what is being built.
Its findings focus on new launches in 2024, rather than every home available for sale or rent. They also compare broad income groups, rather than each household’s personal circumstances.
Even with those limits, the question for housing development is clear.
When hundreds of new homes go on sale, how many offer a realistic chance for the families who want to buy them?
Source: here
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