In a mixed economic system, housing provision in Malaysia is significantly affected by both the public and private sectors. The urbanization level in Malaysia has increased significantly, from 34.2% in 1980 to 71% in 2010, on track to reach 75% by the year 2020, and up to 80% by 2030. This will significantly increase the demand for housing.

Issues in affordability is prevalent and has becoming more crucial in recent years. Housing policy has been formulated since after independence to address issues in housing sector; the objective of this paper is firstly to understand the current scenario of the housing issues in Malaysia and secondly to analyze the policies on affordable housing through significant milestones in the evolution of policies for housing programmes, with an eye toward identifying the way forward in affordable housing policy.

A literature review will give some insights on the affordability scenario, followed by a content analysis on secondary data of past and current housing policy to explore policy evolution. Lastly, expert interviews with stakeholders will give verification to the findings. The conclusion of this paper indicates that affordability issue is crucial and some significant milestone in housing policy formulation showed that encouraging efforts on affordable housing provision is in the pipeline. The way forward sees encouraging efforts to introduce programmes towards provision of affordable housing for the middle-income population through public-private partnership in the provision of housing within Malaysia.