Housing development financier, Shelter Afrique has invested $2m (KSh 200m) in the Kenya Mortgage Refinance Company.
The firm’s Chief Executive Officer Andrew Chimphondah said this will support the development of affordable housing to meet the rising demand.
According to Mr Chimphondah, housing developers were not keen on building houses without guaranteed take-up, hence less focus on the lower end of the market. He added that a lack of affordability also explains the reasons why there were only 24,000 active mortgages in Kenya despite the country having a housing shortage of over 2 million units.
The Kenya Mortgage Refinance Company, fashioned as an implementing arm of government’s affordable housing plan, operates as a private sector-driven company with the purpose of developing the primary and secondary mortgage markets through the provision of long-term funding to the mortgage lenders.
