Govt welcomes feedback on affordable house crowdfunding scheme

KUALA LUMPUR: Tony Pua, political secretary to Finance Minister, has assured the public that FundMyHome will not have a monopoly over the newly-proposed peer-to-peer (P2P) home financing scheme.

Pua, who is also Damansara Member of Parliament, said the government expected more of such P2P to surface once the Securities Commission finalised details of the scheme by the first quarter of 2019.

The SC is tasked to regulate the new financing scheme that serves as an alternative to banks’ housing loans.

“Let me explain, FundMyHome is not a monopoly,” Pua told a forum on Budget 2019 organised by AmBank Group here today.

In his Facebook posting today, EdgeProp Sdn Bhd chairman Datuk Tong Kooi Ong made further clarifications to the company’s FundMyHome concept.

“On whether FundMyHome will really help homeowners and make homes more affordable, I am convinced it will and in the course of the weeks and months ahead, I suspect most will agree.

“All innovations go through stages of perception; from ‘ridicule’ to ‘debate’ and finally to ‘it was obvious’,” Tong wrote.

“In any case, given that FundMyHome involves no public money, concessions or guarantees of any kind from the Government, and that this is just an additional possible solution over and above existing ones, what can be wrong?,” he questioned.

“For those who think they have better solutions, this launch and this innovation in no way impedes anyone else from doing and proposing what they have in mind,” Tong added.

Since Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng announced the new P2P affordable housing scheme last Friday, many interest groups have questioned whether this new idea can effectively solve structural issues in the property market.

At the Budget 2019 forum organised by AmBank Group, today, forum panellists raised issues in many housebuyers’ ability to secure even a 10 per cent down payment.

AmBank Group chief executive Datuk Sulaiman Mohd Tahir, who was among the panellists at the forum, said surveys had found that most lower income earners cannot even afford the 10 per cent minimum upfront payment for a house.

Rehda Institute chairman Datuk Jeffrey Ng raised concerns about how affordable housebuyers would bear all the risk if the residential unit’s value depreciates.

Pua noted such concerns and assured the government will look into the scheme’s potential loopholes as authorities work towards regulating the new financing arrangement.

Source: NST