REMBAU lawmaker Khairy Jamaluddin last night criticised the FundMyHome scheme as a plan which only benefited property developers, while sidelining the poor, low-income earners and the young.

Discussing Budget 2019 at a talk organised by Umno’s information bureau at the party headquarters, Khairy said under the scheme, homebuyers do not own the house because 80% of the house is still owned by developers.

FundMyHome is also designed for property developers because homebuyers bear the risk when the value of the house depreciates, he said.

Buyers have to bear the loss if the value of their house depreciates and the property developers reap the profits if the value of the property appreciates.

“FundMyHome is not my home… 80% is not my home, it’s somebody else’s home,” said the former Umno Youth chief.

FundMyHome, a peer-to-peer (P2P) concept promoted by EdgeProp Sdn Bhd’s Tong Kooi Ong, was adopted by the Pakatan Harapan government in its first budget as an alternative loan scheme for the first-time buyers.

Under the scheme, homebuyers only have to fork out 20% of the purchase price and they can live in the house for up to five years, after which they have to decide whether to buy or sell the property at prevailing market price.

Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng, when tabling Budget 2019, said the crowd-funding scheme will be supervised by the Securities Commission.

Khairy said the scheme could roll out in the first quarter of next year after the Securities Commission has given its green light even though Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad reportedly “launched” the scheme just two days after the budget.

“After five years and if the homebuyers decide to buy the house, it is certain the value of the house would have depreciated.

“The property developers are the ones who will benefit from the appreciated values not the homebuyers,” Khairy said.

He said the government needs to understand the main issues facing first-time homebuyers apart from the prohibitive cost of the house.

Many first-time homebuyers can’t even fork out a 10% deposit, he said.

“Young people just starting out in life do not even have the means to pay a 10% deposit and this scheme requires them to pay 20%.

“Where will they find the money?”

He said the previous Barisan Nasional administration’s My First Home scheme in collaboration with Cagarmas provided borrowers 100% of the loan.

“We build the RPR house, we initiated the rent-to-own scheme. That’s how we assisted young people to own homes.” – November 16, 2018.