Housing Market In Uganda

Housing market is the one of the main branches of the real estate market. The real estate market is a set of participants (buyer, seller, owner, developer, broker, agent, realtor, property manager, state regulatory bodies, etc.) and transactions (purchase, sale, rent, etc.) committed between them in the market.

Housing market economy is defined as a limited part of the real estate economy. It is concentrated on trends according residential type property. The main what characterize the housing economy is pattern of prices, supply and demand.

Each of listed above has their qualifiers. For demand on the housing market it will be:

Main- demografic factor;

-income

-price for housing

-cost -availability o credit

-consumer preferences

- investor

The total mortgage rate by the end of 2010 reach 4,8 percent of GDP if to compare to the 2009- 3,3% and 2002- 0,3%. The sector is however small in comparison to the increasing housing needs of country and it has principally been serving the middle and high income earners

The lower income earners who constitute over 80% of the population have for long been left out of this bracket which is a reflection of the relatively weak foundations made by consecutive governments in building a sound housing industry for the mainly poor and rapidly growing population.

This report; i) explores how the housing finance sector in Uganda functions, ii) examines the effectiveness of housing finance in relation to the general housing conditions in the country, and iii) recommends a range of options for both public and private sector intervention geared towards enabling more efficient and effective housing finance services

House demand

The population of Uganda is aprox 31 million , for capital- , and the groth rate 3.3. In 2008 the national housing requarments estimates at 233,000 units with a housing deficir of about 560,000 enits. Kampala alone having a deficit of 100,000 units. Kampala’s annual housing requariments is 22,000

4)

Uganda

Dr W S Kalema

,

for the FinMark Trust (June 2008)

5

Overview of housing finance in Uganda

The Housing Situation (1960’s to 1980’s)

Dating back to the mid and late sixties, a time when Uganda had just attained her independence, government set up three institutions to deal with the increasing demand for housing caused by rapid urbanization8

. These were:

1.

The National Housing and Construction Company (NHCC) that was charged with building houses in response to the demand;

2.

The Housing Finance Company of Uganda (HFCU) [now the Housing Finance Bank (HFB)] that was charged with providing related mortgage finance; and

3.

The National Insurance Corporation (NIC) that was charged with providing insurance services.

To further boost the operations of these institutions, government established the Social Security Fund [now the National Social Security Fund (NSSF)] in 1967 to provide pensions and other security services. With the assistance from NIC, the Security Fund mobilized long

-term savings that were intermediated by HFCU and other financial institutions to provide mortgage