KUALA LUMPUR: The government has raised the monthly household income eligibility for Rumah Mesra Rakyat (RMR) application from RM3,000 to RM5,000.
Local Government Development Minister Nga Kor Ming said revision of the eligibility, made last month, was meant to benefit more people by providing opportunities to more people to apply for the scheme.
"Applicants can submit their applications online via the Syarikat Perumahan Negara Berhad (SPNB) website and no longer through agents. The process will be done transparently without having to pay agent fees," he told reporters after the handing over ceremony of RMR offer letters and house keys, here today.
A total of 40 recipients from Selangor, Perak, Melaka and Negri Sembilan received the keys to their new houses at the ceremony.
Nga said among RMR's new initiatives were the extension of the monthly instalment period from 16 to 25 years with a fixed rate of RM300, whereby applicants can choose from six designs offered by SPNB and a layout that suits their lifestyle.
He added that they can either choose to maintain the three-room unit design or change to the two-room design.
"In addition to modern and better habitable house designs, SPNB is also in the process of obtaining certification from Sirim for all the housing units it builds," he said.
Nga assured that several proactive measures were being taken to ensure that the price of an RMR unit for new applicants would continue to be subsidised by the government, despite the rising and uncertain price of building materials.
The RMR programme is one of the programmes created to help target groups, who do not own a house or live in dilapidated houses but have a land to build their own houses.
"So far a total of 56,002 RMR units have been successfully built by SPNB since 2002 until last March. "This year, another 4,250 RMR units are expected to be built with an allocation of RM358 million, as announced in the 2023 Budget," he said.
Yesterday at the handing over ceremony, SPNB also presented a cash donation to the Welfare Development Organisation of Darul Ilmi Malaysia in Gombak, Selangor as one of the company's corporate social responsibility programmes.