State Bank working to develop housing market

[LahoreEstate]

According to conservative estimates, there is already a backlog of more than six million housing units, which is growing approximately by about 300,000 units every year. - File photo

KARACHI: State Bank is working to develop secondary housing mortgage market to bridge wide gap between demand and supply of housing units.

This was revealed by the Deputy Governor of SBP Kamran Shehzad in a working paper recently read out in a housing workshop, organised by World Bank Group to assess the housing problem in the region.

There is an imminent need of establishing a secondary housing mortgage market in the country to narrow the broadening gap between demand and supply of housing units and to enable the financial institutions, dealing in mortgage loans, to reduce the mismatching of maturity profile of their assets and liabilities, said the paper.

Shehzad said the total housing finance portfolio of banks and development finance institutions (DFIs) in Pakistan as on December 31, 2008 was Rs88.2 billion witnessing a growth of almost 300 per cent over the last five years.

Despite achieving significant growth, the mortgage debt to GDP ratio is even less than one per cent; a concern when compared to five per cent in India, 18 per cent in Malaysia and 15 per cent in China, he said.

‘The State Bank is currently working on an initiative to develop secondary housing mortgage market,’ said the Deputy Governor.

He said Pakistan, like other developing countries, faces a critical shortage of housing units.

According to conservative estimates, there is already a backlog of more than six million housing units, which is growing approximately by about 300,000 units every year.

‘This backlog, together with inadequate housing facilities has been affecting quality of life of the general public especially the urban working class in Pakistan,’ he said.

According to the paper, average national occupancy rate per dwelling in Pakistan is over six whereas per room density is 3.5 persons as compared to the international standard of 1.1 per room.

‘The shortage of housing facilities is more acute in urban cities and towns where more than half of the population lives in slums or in irregular settlements,’ he added.

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