Housing Investment Partners Trust 2 (HIP2), also known as Vulumnyango Trust, has secured a R570-million loan from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to offer affordable housing options for South Africa’s lower-middle income earners.
With the housing needs of the lower-middle income households – or gap market – remaining “huge and unaddressed”, the loan will assist those with limited opportunities to access affordable mortgages.
The move also unlocked opportunities for HIP2, which aims to offer more than 4,000 affordable mortgages for lower-middle income earners through this loan, to mobilise additional funding from other sources.
To date, the trust had secured R1.82-billion from National Housing Finance Company, Old Mutual Group, Futuregrowth and AfDB.
“Although South Africa is one of the more developed economies in Africa, the country still faces acute shortage of affordable housing in its main urban areas, estimated at three-million units in 2014,” the development bank said, highlighting that this had resulted in the establishment of more than 2 600 informal settlements around 70 of South Africa‘s major urban areas.
