Interview: Housing Finance Bank Is Making Housing Affordable – Senior Manager

Yusuf Babuwaire, Senior Manager Personal Banking at Housing Finance Bank

With the Uganda Bureau of Statistics estimating that the housing deficit in Uganda is at 2.1 million units, experts have said that this situation needs urgent attention. The deficit is estimated to be highest in Kampala.

We caught up with Yunus Babuwaire, the Senior Manager, Personal Banking at Housing Finance Bank to explain the key interventions the Bank has put in place.  Below are the excerpts.

Qn: What does housing finance mean?

Housing finance can be defined as provision of credit to enable home ownership. At Housing Finance Bank we have expanded this scope to cover housing and its entire value chain.

Qn: What is Housing Finance Bank doing to help increase access to affordable housing?

Housing Finance has a wide range of solutions to assist Ugandans to meet all their housing needs. These include:

1. Incremental housing which enables;
2. Construction in phases
3. Use of untitled land
4. Financing housing support services like; solar and water connection

• 100% financing – to purchase or complete your residential property, you can access up to 100% finance to enable you realize your dream.
• Partnership with developers of low-cost housing to build and sell affordable houses toUgandans.
• Flexibility repayments options which include;
• Grace period
• Early loan redemption
• Longer repayment periods

Qn: What kind of housing finance solutions does Housing Finance Bank provide?

We provide different housing finance solutions to cater for Ugandans in all income brackets including those in the diaspora. Our solutions range from purchasing land or incomplete houses to outrightly purchasing multiple units. These include:

• Incremental loans Land Purchase
• Land Purchase
• Home Loans
• Multi-unit purchase or construction
• Equity release
• Renovation

Qn: Please walk us through the process of applying for a home loan and what happens after you give me the loan.

We endeavor to make the loan application process as simple and straight forward as possible. All you have to do is follow the simple process below;

• Approach the bank with your specific need.
• Discuss the need with our relationship officers and get advised on a solution and the requirements.
• Submit the requirements for assessment and approval and receive our offer.
• When you accept our offer, then you can get your house or property and start paying our loan

Qn: What happens after?

We offer additional financial advisory services to help you make the right decisions on repayment and resolve any challenges if any.We also offer Insurance for the property.

Qn: The world today is filled with different uncertainties that can affect people’s ability to make payments. How does Housing Finance Bank protect borrowers in such cases?

We are always aware of uncertainties thatmight affect the ability of borrowers to make payments. In this case, we offer relief packages such as:

• Moratoriums
• Loan restructures

Qn: In what ways can government policy change to help increase access to affordable housing and housing finance.

1. Review of tax regime in the housing sector and its raw materials.
2. Legislation to provide laws that support growth of housing sector.
3. Stimulate household income to improve demand by ensuring stable economic growth.
4. Building a good regulatory frame work that boast investment in the housing sector.
5. Review Tax regime to reduce the cost of acquiring and owning a home. This can include reducing the high stamp duty taxes and reviewing the rental income tax.
6. Government can also improve infrastructure, road network, Water and electricity supply which will in turn increase the suitability of more affordable land in places out of Kampala.
7. Finally, we need to automate the lands system.

Qn: How is the housing finance Baraza conversation helping to advance your role as the leader in providing housing finance solutions in Uganda?

The Housing Finance Baraza has created a platform to interact with key players in the housing value chain such as Architects, Developers, suppliers and manufactures of construction materials, Engineers, Financiers/ Banks ,insurance companies and many other stakeholders with a common goal of providing affordable houses.

The baraza also creates awareness on the different affordable housing solution both in terms of financing and availability of houses both to our local and international market to enable customer make cost effective decisions on acquiring affordable housing.