COMMENT The Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur is offering public housing to help those from the lower-income bracket own houses in line with Prime Minister Najib Razak’s ‘People First, Performance Now’ commitment.

Across the Causeway, Malaysian permanent residents (PRs) in Singapore are snapping up second-hand Housing Development Board (HDB) flats like nobody’s business. While there are no official figures on how many HDB flats are owned by MPRs, anecdotal evidence seems to suggest that...