Unlike the high-rise public housing available in various parts of Asia, Brunei's public homes come in the form of landed houses the size of bungalows in Singapore.
Each of these two-storey houses reportedly measures over 330 sq m or 3,552 sq ft in land area. In Singapore, bungalows have a minimum land area of 400 sq m or 4,306 sq ft.
According to a report on Taiwan's Set TV news, the price tag on one of these government-subsidised homes and the land it is built on is around $84,000.
The two-storey homes come with spacious rooms and kitchens and are comfortable to live in.
Homeowners can sign up for interest-free loans of up to 30 years. There is even a 3-month trial stay period with no charge.
This would seem like an extremely good deal to residents in other Asian countries where land and property are a lot more expensive.
Utilities in Brunei are also extremely affordable when compared to its neighbouring countries. One family Set TV news spoke to said that they kept their air-conditioner switched on all day, every day but spent just $8.40 on utilities that month.
In Brunei, most people used to live in kelong-like homes on the water. As a result of this, many were exposed to widespread communicable diseases like cholera and smallpox in the early 1950s. As a result, the government began to resettle these water village inhabitants inland.
To qualify for the National Housing Programme, applicants need to be first-time property owners, at least 18 years old and must have a salary between $ 445 and $ 3,030. The average waiting time for a house is less than 12 years, but the Brunei government aims to reduce this to just 5 years by 2021.
A 2013 ASEAN Conference paper on Brunei's public housing programme said that the Brunei Darussalam government had doubled its budget allocation for public housing from $550 million to $1.141 billion in the past 10 years.