Affordable Housing for Low-Income Communities: Between Residental and Investment

Abstract

The problem of meeting housing needs for low-income communities is the inaccessibility of prices on the housing market. The Salatiga government has made efforts to meet this need by building low-cost houses for civil servants that utilize Government Land, thus keeping prices far below standard. As time went on, these cheap houses that belong to civil servants were not used as residential for the owners, but most of them became long-term investments. Based on these problems, the study aims to examine the impact of the low-cost house construction, namely KORPRI Housing in Prajamukti, Salatiga City of residential and investment functions. The method used is quantitative, primary data collected through field observations and interviews with residents and housing provider stakeholders. Meanwhile, secondary data obtained through government agencies and websites. The analysis technique uses a quantitative descriptive method and map overlay. The results showed that the function of houses is 60% for investment by rent out the housing to others, 30% as residential functions for civil servants, and 10% sold to other people. This condition is due to the status of the house is not the owner’s first home, strategic housing location, and triggered by an increase in land value. The contribution of this research is that previous researchers discussed a lot about the construction of cheap houses that received subsidies from the government, whereas in this study, the price reduction was the result of taking land assets belonging to the government in the form of Government Land.