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Johannesburg - Nedbank [JSE:NED] intends to extend a lot more credit to people in the lower income brackets to grow home ownership among people in the affordable housing segment.
The affordable housing market is an area that Nedbank is constantly looking to grow, said Nedbank’s homeloans head of sales and client value management, Timothy Akinnusi.
“We have quite a strong affinity to make sure that people in the lower income brackets are able to own a home of their own,” said Akinnusi.
“We have partnered up with the French Development Agency to provide a grant to customers in the affordable housing segment.
"It is a R17 000 grant, of which a portion is made up of a buyer-education programme.
“We take them through the journey of home ownership; give them a lot of information and knowledge about what it means to own the home and to maintain it”.
Another portion of the grant would go towards a deposit to help people in the lower income brackets afford the loan that Nedbank would grant them, Akinnusi explained.
“We also have a government-backed subsidy programme in which we partner with various municipalities to bring home ownership to people within the income bracket of within R7 000 to R17 000.”
He said that the bank also considers a different pricing model for affordable housing customers to make sure that it is pricing them appropriately for the loan size that customers are taking.
While Nedbank intends to extend more credit to customers within the affordable housing segment, Akinnui also cautioned about the rising levels of consumer debt.
“Consumers are feeling very stressed, we have seen a lot of the indebtedness that consumers have from the unsecured lending boom.”
He said that Nedbank continued to advise customers to be very prudent about how they take out credit and to utilise credit for things that would add long-term value and not to add consumption value to them.
“We believe that interest rates will be going up at some stage next year so it would be best for customers not to stretch themselves too much,” warned Akinnusi.
He added that consumers should leave some margin in their disposable income to cater for any rise in interest rates in the short term.
- Fin24
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The affordable housing market is an area that Nedbank is constantly looking to grow, said Nedbank’s homeloans head of sales and client value management, Timothy Akinnusi.
“We have quite a strong affinity to make sure that people in the lower income brackets are able to own a home of their own,” said Akinnusi.
“We have partnered up with the French Development Agency to provide a grant to customers in the affordable housing segment.
"It is a R17 000 grant, of which a portion is made up of a buyer-education programme.
“We take them through the journey of home ownership; give them a lot of information and knowledge about what it means to own the home and to maintain it”.
Another portion of the grant would go towards a deposit to help people in the lower income brackets afford the loan that Nedbank would grant them, Akinnusi explained.
“We also have a government-backed subsidy programme in which we partner with various municipalities to bring home ownership to people within the income bracket of within R7 000 to R17 000.”
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He said that the bank also considers a different pricing model for affordable housing customers to make sure that it is pricing them appropriately for the loan size that customers are taking.
While Nedbank intends to extend more credit to customers within the affordable housing segment, Akinnui also cautioned about the rising levels of consumer debt.
“Consumers are feeling very stressed, we have seen a lot of the indebtedness that consumers have from the unsecured lending boom.”
He said that Nedbank continued to advise customers to be very prudent about how they take out credit and to utilise credit for things that would add long-term value and not to add consumption value to them.
“We believe that interest rates will be going up at some stage next year so it would be best for customers not to stretch themselves too much,” warned Akinnusi.
He added that consumers should leave some margin in their disposable income to cater for any rise in interest rates in the short term.
- Fin24
Add your voice to our Property Issue:
* Write a guest post
* Share a personal story
* Ask the experts