A think-tank is of the view that government agencies should not be directly involved in the building of low-cost homes to generate affordable housing projects.
Noting the government’s active role in the housing market, as indicated in the recently-launched National Housing Policy (NHP), the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) said the better way to address the affordability issue would be to remove regulatory obstacles, beginning with reducing the direct involvement of government agencies.
“[The] low-end market segment is not disregarded by the private developers because it is naturally unprofitable, but because it is artificially made unprofitable by a series of regulatory obstacles that become supply-side bottlenecks,” said IDEAS senior fellow Dr Carmelo Ferlito (pictured).
