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Candidates promise to ease mortgages, set up agency to solve housing problem
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New towns in Greater Jakarta are viewed as an alternative for most of the city's middle and lower middle-class. (Shutterstock.com/Creativa Images)
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ll presidential candidates have vowed to solve the housing problem in Indonesia where properties are beyond the reach of many hopeful homeowners, either due to soaring prices or an insufficient supply of land to accommodate rising demand.
The three promise to ease mortgage procedures and ramp up housing construction, if elected. Two of them also aim to establish a new government agency similar to Singapore’s Housing & Development Board (HDB), hoping it could bridge property developers and the public.
Around 11 million households in Indonesia faced a homeownership backlog in 2022 with almost 40 percent of those waiting millennials, followed by Gen X with a roughly similar share, according to the Public Works and Housing Ministry.
A 2021 survey also showed 63 percent of millennial respondents could not afford housing due to difficulties acquiring financing, according to data from state-owned mortgage lender BTN.
Presidential candidate Anies Baswedan said on Nov. 24 that he wanted to ease the mortgage process by opening eligibility up to workers from the informal sector.
Thomas “Tom” Lembong, co-captain of Anies Baswedan and Muhaimin Iskandar's campaign team, explained that Indonesia’s financial sector was often reluctant to disburse mortgages to the group, which they perceived as high risk, and there was a lack of incentive to enter the segment.
"Our bankers need a paradigm shift. They should not be lazy [by disbursing mortgages only] for people with salary slips. The government could guarantee the risk perceived by banks," Tom said in a TV interview on Wednesday.
