Budget 2027 wishlist: Rehda wants wider housing loan access, special campaign for unsold units

KUALA LUMPUR: The National House Buyers Association (HBA) has abandoned its annual practice of presenting a budget wishlist, citing repeated calls for stronger homebuyer protections and tougher enforcement that have gone largely unheeded. After years of submitting recommendations to successive budgets, HBA honorary secretary-general Datuk Chang Kim Loong stated that the organization was no longer willing to make the same appeals for improved homebuyer safeguards, housing affordability, and action against problematic housing projects without achieving any perceived results.

HBA has now decided to forgo its wishlist for the 2027 Budget, not because the issues are unimportant or that HBA lacks solutions, but because repeatedly submitting the same requests without seeing meaningful action has become futile, as Chang explained in a statement. The association has grown weary of making the same proposals for stronger protections, enforcing existing laws effectively, and addressing the prevalence of abandoned housing projects, only to see them seemingly ignored or given minimal attention.

Chang expressed frustration with the government's priorities seeming to diverge from HBA's core concerns and questioned the emphasis on creating new legislation and regulatory frameworks when existing laws and enforcement mechanisms have yet to adequately address the long-standing issues faced by homebuyers. Chang urged the government to focus on fixing existing problems before pursuing new measures, emphasizing that producing another detailed wishlist would be pointless if the intended action takers were not listening.

For the 2027 Budget, HBA's message is clear: listen to the concerns of homebuyers who have been vocal for years, and prioritize the effective and serious implementation of existing laws over creating new layers of bureaucracy.