This interview was taken during the Africa Urban Infrastructure Summit in April 2013.  

When the President announced the new FLISP (Finance Linked Individual Subsidy Programme) in his 2012 State of the Nation Address, the groundswell of interest and enthusiasm for this subsidy was not anticipated. Since then, this website has been inundated with requests for information, people asking whether they qualify and for how much, arguing that they are in that “gap” market, too rich to qualify for the RDP subsidy, and too poor to afford the cheapest newly built house available on the market. While the FLISP subsidy has already helped some people – the President announced in this year’s State of…

At the heart of the Arab spring was a lack of affordable housing, a bold statement I read in a magazine article, which went on to say that:  the shortage of affordable homes is one of the underlying causes of the social unrest and the resulting political turmoil that has spread across the MENA region during the Arab Spring of 2011. I was initially quite skeptical and thought as many would, this was simplification of a much more complex problem. Further, common sense dictates that it is more about poverty and a lack of jobs. If you have money, you…

Housing delivery requires that a number of systems work; finance, land and infrastructure. Housing microfinance works even when many of these systems do not work well. For example, certain segments of the population build and improve housing circumstances incrementally, because of the high cost of housing and lack of affordable finance. HMF is tailored to match this staged build process, financed by these relatively small and less predictable incomes streams. Another example is that many people reside on land that may not have clear land title. HMF has the ability to work with various shades of tenure security, many that…

Recently I attended a conference hosted by Urban LandMark (an organisation dedicated to making urban land markets work for (and with) the poor, founded in 2006). The conference was held in Johannesburg over two days (from the 13th to the 14th March 2013). And it had a stimulating line-up of speakers each of whom were well versed in their respective sectors. There was an array of topics being presented and discussed.  Of particular interest to me was the second session titled: Investor impacts in African countries, with a particular focus on Chinese investments in Africa. Discussing this topic was: Allan…

An interesting statistic struck me the other day when browsing through an article on land ownership in African urban areas. While in Dakar, Senegal, 74 per cent of the slum dwellers are owner occupiers, in Nairobi it is the exact opposite; as high as 95 per cent of dwellers are tenants and do not own their structures. Nairobi is not unique: in many African and indeed developing world cities, there is a major skew in terms of land ownership. HMF is a product designed for low income people to use to finance their housing and home improvement needs – whether…

In recent years, most African countries have witnessed an unswerving surge in the house prices which is actually a cause for concern in several quarters. For instance, the ABSA housing index in South Africa shows that the average price of small houses () have risen from R660 953 in 2011 Q1 to R777 343 in the fourth quarter of 2012. Meanwhile, in the so-called affordable segment (), the average price rose from R292 790 in 2009 to R345 388 in the last quarter of 2012. This represents a 17% increase in each case. Similarly, the Hassconsult, a leading property company…

So what is the big hype about consumer education?  Normally when that topic came up in any article or discussion, I would basically switch off; until recently when I witnessed a situation where I actually thought consumer education could go a long way. My mother takes part in an annual grocery stokvel group in South Africa.  A stokvel is basically a saving scheme where a group of people contribute fixed sums of money to a central fund on a monthly basis. The scheme in which my mother takes part, is run by a local supermarket which allows individuals to save…

It is incredible the change that occurs in an area over a defined period. Four years ago there were two Cashbuild stores supplying the largest district municipality of Capricorn in Limpopo Province, in the north of South Africa. Going back today, that number has more than doubled, and rightly so due to the noticeable scale at which many people are improving their houses. The demand for housing construction materials is evidenced by the upsurge in these building stores. Alongside the growth of building stores is the number of households that are either in the process of renovating or adding rooms,…

Housing microfinance has often ridden on the wave of microfinance lending. General microfinance is a valuable brand that has provided the possibility for commercially viable enterprise to help the poorest of the poor. The industry even has its own Nobel Prize winner, not too bad given it started formal lending only in the late 70’s and early 80s. Naturally therefore HMF can share in the limelight of the industry its shares a name with. In fact, today, the reliance by HMF on established institutions and practices of microfinance is without doubt. HMF has been traditionally defined as a subset of…