For the past 50 years, the Malaysian government has been campaigning homeownership programs. The reason is clear: every Malaysian deserves a quality place to live in for a quality life. The government has focused on various housing programs through its Five Year Plans (2016-2020) to provide affordable housing for both city and rural areas (Economic Planning Unit, 2015). Private housing developers have contributed all these while to the program and established several housing programs (such as PR1MA and PPA1M 1) in order to address the country’s housing demands. Furthermore, since independence in 1957, the country has seen a significant migration trend from rural to urban areas. According to a census carried out by the Malaysian Department of Statistics (2015), almost 72% of the population now live in urban areas. Based on a United Nations estimate, by 2050, 87% of Malaysians (37 million) will be residing in urban areas. In the previous development plan (Unit, 2010), the government pledged to provide 500,000 units of quality affordable housing to meet the demand before 2018; however, by 2015 only 102,200 units of affordable housing had been delivered (Economic Planning Unit, 2015).

Although the government has made efforts to answer the plea for more affordable housing for the middle-income group, there are concerns about the rising household debt among young Malaysians. Given the rule of thumb on the affordability rate of 30% of expenditure of income on housing (for median incomes), the price of housing offered under the scheme is still unaffordable for many. This is partly caused by the increasing price of construction and raw materials (Chia, Skit more, Rune son, & Bridge, 2012), a shortage of land and increasing land prices (Cagamas Berhad, 2013). Despite the high housing prices, customers are also grappling with inflexibility in housing design and the poor building quality of new housing. Furthermore, affordability relates to a range of interconnected elements addressing issues from both the demand side (housing needs, demographics, household income, quality housing) and the supply side (authorities’ requirements, design, cost, sustainability and procurement).