Property Players Laud The New Mortgage Regulations

Property and pension industry players have welcomed the new mortgage regulations saying it will help to shape the dream of affordable homeownership in Kenya.

President Uhuru Kenyatta, under the Big Four agenda, promised to construct at least 500,000 affordable housing units for Kenyans by the time he leaves office in 2022.

The Mortgage Regulation 2020 stipulates that the funds accessed upon retirement can only be used on a dwelling house for residential purposes with members accessing up to 40 percent of the accrued benefits, capped at 7 million shillings.

“This mortgage loan regulation is a good incentive for members to save knowing that as much as they are saving for their long-term objective, retirement, there is an immediate intervention when they want to acquire a house for themselves,” said Octagon Africa Group CEO Fred Waswa.

Section 38 of the Retirement Benefits Act was recently amended to allow members of retirement benefits schemes to utilize a proportion of their accrued benefits to purchasing a residential house.

Speaking during the official opening of the conference Principal Secretary, State Department for Housing and Urban Development Mr. Charles Hinga Mwaura commended Octagon Africa for bringing together such a forum with key experts from the property, financial, and pension sectors.

“We must work together as industry players and be deliberate about expanding the dream of homeownership to even more people. As a country, we have the lowest mortgage to GDP ratio in the world. We must therefore be deliberate in our efforts and work diligently to promote affordable housing, more so homeownership which is a dream to 97 percent of people, especially to people of low income,” he added.

The Kenya Mortgage Refinance Company approximates that there are only 21,000 mortgages in the country signifying that the new regulation, if well implemented will bring about affordability, contributing to the Big Four Agenda.

READ: Kenya Has At Least 21,000 Mortgages: Will Big Four Be Realized?