The former finance minister, who headed the Council of Eminent Persons, said the peer-to-peer (P2P) home financing initiative was something new.
“It’ll be the first time a country is attempting this to help bridge the gap between low wages and high property prices.
“So we should see more studies being carried out on practical ways to implement this,” Daim said on the sidelines of the Affin-Hwang Capital Conference Series 2018 here today.
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad expressed confidence that the property crowdfunding solution would help drive the building of one million houses over 10 years.
The scheme, to be regulated by the Securities Commission, will offer first-time house buyers the chance to pay only 20% to own a house while the remaining cost will be borne by investors via a P2P financing framework.
Commenting on the Japanese government’s offer to guarantee the 200 billion yen (RM7.4 billion) Samurai bonds with a 10-year tenure, Daim said it would help Malaysia to retire some of the old debts that were signed on at high-interest rates.
P2P guidelines to be announced soon
Meanwhile, Deputy Housing and Local Government Minister Raja Kamarul Bahrin Shah Raja Ahmad said the guidelines on the P2P home financing initiative would be announced in the next one to two weeks.
He said the government was committed to opening up house ownership for Malaysians by looking at ways to ease financing needs.
“Anything that is new is bound to have details that need to be ironed out. At the moment, we have not quite worked out the full mechanism yet.
“Give it one or two more weeks, we will come out with the full guidelines giving the criteria on how people are going to qualify for it,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the LEAP Summit 2018 here today.
According to reports, the House Buyers Association (HBA) recently criticised the move, saying that the real problem was the high house prices and not financing options.
HBA expressed concern on growing property speculation, property scams and bad debts, saying the government would be providing buyers with a weak credit score access to “easy credits” with the P2P scheme.