300,000 Kenyans Sign Up for Low-Cost Housing Deals

Nearly 300,000 Kenyans have enrolled for the State-backed affordable housing scheme slightly over a year after the government unveiled a website to facilitate the allocation of homes.

As of Monday morning, 298,889 citizens had registered on the Boma Yangu online portal, up from 276,520 in January – a spike attributable to an announcement that a lottery-based allocation of 228 homes in Ngara, Nairobi, would take place in the next few weeks.

Principal Secretary for Housing and Urban Development Charles Hinga had earlier said the rising number of registrations was occasioned by increased awareness of the program.

“We are working towards ensuring the construction, completion, and handover of these houses is expedited so we can give our people a sense of ownership, promote social equity and improve access to our urban cities,” Mr Hinga said in an interview.

Some 228 houses have been completed in the first phase of Nairobi’s Park Road flagship project, which will hold a total of 1,370 units upon completion in October 2020.

Other areas to be covered in the initial phase of the scheme include Makongeni (20,000 houses), Shauri Moyo (5,000 houses), as well as Starehe and Mavoko in Machakos County – where 3,000 houses will be delivered.

The affordable housing scheme, which seeks to deliver 500,000 homes countrywide in five years, allows Kenyans to register for free on the Boma Yangu platform – giving personal information such as employment status, household details and preferred area of residence, which will help the government to identify the best locations to put up the houses.

EXPLAINER: What is the Kenya Housing Fund?

After registration, an assessment is then undertaken to verify the details provided and upon completion, the potential buyer will then be allocated a unique identification number which they will use to make their contribution to their account in the fund.

“Allocation of houses to qualified applicants would start as soon as the construction of the houses begins. The process will be done in a regular, fair and transparent system free of any human intervention,” reads a statement on Boma Yangu.

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Allocation of the houses will be done upon commencement of the construction after which the new homeowner can begin paying at manageable and affordable repayment terms.

Under the rules governing the affordable housing scheme, the lowest paid worker, earning less than Sh14,999 per month, (2.62pc of Kenya’s formally employed workforce) will qualify for social housing – with homes selling for about Sh500,000.

Individuals earning Sh15,000-Sh49,999 per month (72pc of workforce) will be offered homes under the tenant purchase scheme, while those grossing Sh50,000-Sh99,000 (23pc of workforce) will be offered mortgages at 7pc per annum – payable within 15 years.

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