President William Ruto is preparing to roll out the new Affordable Houses Financing in a fortnight in an effort to expedite the ownership of the affordable houses under construction.
Speaking during the handover of the Buxton housing project in Mombasa on Thursday, the Head of State revealed that the mortgage-style financing programme will offer low-income Kenyans a chance to secure financing for their homes.
He added that various loan packages will attract different tiers of interest rates, including ranging between 3 per cent and 9 per cent.
However, the President insisted that the interest rates the new loan facility will offer will be significantly lower compared to those of banks.
"We are going to operationalise Affordable Housing Financing. It was passed by the Cabinet and Lands CS will gazette it in the coming two weeks," he told a cheerful congregation.
"The current mortgage of 18 per cent will be reduced to 3 per cent for the social housing (lower class). Those for affordable housing (middle class) will now have the mortgage at 6 per cent and the rich will have the mortgage reduced from 18 to 6 per cent. We want all Kenyans to own houses."
Ruto also promised to strip all taxes from raw materials used in the affordable housing process to speed up the delivery of the projects at a lower cost.
"I have told the governor that I am going to remove taxes on all building materials used in affordable housing so that they can be accessed at a cheap price," he added.
"We have agreed that we cannot continue to import the materials. That is why we have placed taxes on imported furniture."
The Head of State is racing against time to deliver at least 200,000 units of affordable houses before the year-end.
In Nairobi, he revealed that at least 40,000 houses are under construction, with 30,000 others expected to kick off in December 2023.
584 units were handed over to their new owners in the first phase of the Buxton Estate, a project valued at Ksh6 billion that forms part of the affordable houses.
