The policy paper is a follow-up analysis of our previously released study on the Malaysian property market (Ferlito, 2018a). The debate has evolved, and it is mainly focused on the issue of housing affordability, judged primarily by the use of the price/income ratio, which is a very limited instrument. This paper reaffirm the necessity of tackling the affordability issue in the realm of the general property market situation, which in the current scenario is facing a downturn readjustment process.

This paper divide to 4 section, the first section of the present work summarises the previous findings and extends them, taking into account development. In section 2, the paper discusses the approach to affordability and analyse the recently released national housing policy. In section 3, policy recommendations are presented, both with reference to the downturn phase of the property market and to the issue of affordability, with special attention to the possibility offered by the rental market. Section 4 concludes the paper.