A house by seaside is like a tower with fragile firehouse.

"Kalau takut dilambung ombak, jangan berumah di tepi pantai"

Malay proverbs are among the most sacred and deep-in-meanings phrases that ever existed throughout this millennium. Malaysians who are speaking Malay Language as daily conversation, would never use the above phrase due to its long-lasting effects should the house has been built considerably by seaside. And majority of Malaysians would never use this term whenever they see themselves are about to indulge in any argument concerning buying or selling a house by a seaside. Nobody would ever argue for sure whenever they are asked to move because of the disastrous nature of the calculated risk inherent in the house or the seaside itself.

Malaysia is full of land and natural resources. Notwithstanding anything that the people are asking to have a better standard of living, the need to have a very big house with compounds is not a dream to be shunned by anyone. In the capital cities we can see the tendency of the developers to build flats, condos, shop-houses with different market segmentation and sizes which denote the prices for each unit. Due to economic conditions and lower income factors, many people are not able to own their own house and if they have one, many of them opt to re-finance their houses in order to have access to cash and good relationship with the bankers (which is necessary as the government is helping the Banks to prosper better than the people - what a cycnical point of view it is).

We have to remember that the colonial years had brought the concept of classes or status quo mentality (in my words "status in society") and the richer the person is, the bigger the house and expensive their properties would become or would look to become, and the lower income people will always in debt to own anything from house, land or even their household products. In schools, students are categorised by who send them to school, whether they've alighted from big cars / expensive cars, "Giffen cars", near-torn school buses, motorbikes, or they rode bicycles or perhaps just walked to school. We can imagine how their houses are like, should the above colonial mathematics is used as a logical sense.

A house by seaside is like a tower with fragile firehouse ; is perhaps not the best translation of the Malay term, but it gives a clearer picture on how Malaysians are suffering to own the best houses they dream of ever since Independence. Nobody ever made a survey on the request of the people concerning what type of houses they need ; in fact, the escalating prices of properties in Malaysia as at to-date can be similarly quoted as the title of this article above. 

Minimum salary policy is not a problem for Malaysia to implement. However, the propensity to save and propensity to spend are both restricted. Households are having problems to make ends meet should the houses are to be financed for as long as 25-30 years or during their life-time tenure. Just imagine their other needs to have motor vehicles, vacations, education, insurance and good clothes and foods which Maslow Pyramid itself does not qualify with the current economic and political turbulences we are facing. 

I would not exaggerate the above issue further since the title is very much an obstacle to the readers to digest. Some would have sleepless nights and some would try to figure out how their houses are supposed to be built on such a condition (or conditioning).

So, Pr1ma and suchlike houses will have a big agenda on the next housing policies as far as budget 2017 is concerned. We will see how the Finance Minister is going to translate my article in his own language i.e expertise and courtesy.

(This article is intentionally written for the Finance Minister and  for those who like to read my writings).