Owning a house remains an investment

At the recent launch of FNB Namibia’s EasyBond, Mr Namene Kalili, Senior Manager: Research and Development at the FNB Group, gave a short overview and history regarding some aspects of the housing market in Namibia compared to South Africa. In his presentation Kalili advised that prices for housing had gone up an average of 11% per annum since 2007. This has resulted in small property prices increasing from N$242 000 in 2007 compared to N$680 000 today, while medium property prices have increased from N$575 000 to N$1 780 000 over the same period and larger house prices have increased from N$1 160 000 to N$3 750 000. This has meant that housing in Namibia has increased 2.4 times over the past decade. Although this has provided fantastic returns to existing home owners, houses have become unaffordable to most, and those fortunate enough to own property can barely afford their own houses at the current market price. This has been driven by dismal volume growth. As the population has grown, the economy has been unable to produce more housing and therefore the housing backlog has increased rapidly pushing prices well beyond the reach of most.“This year has seen a slow-down in the property market, with properties spending on average 82 days to sell, with Windhoek 80 days and Swakopmund or Walvis Bay having houses on the market for 83 days. In South Africa this average is 76 days.” Kalili added that 76% of houses were also sold below asking price – 68% in Windhoek and 82% in Swakopmund and Walvis Bay. This is a marked difference from a year ago, where properties were selling well above valuations and top ups were the order of the day. First time buyers made up 22,8% of the buyers, while speculative buying has all but disappeared to a mere 4.0% of the transaction volumes. “Coupled with a declining buy to let market, the market is slowly leaning towards a buyers’ market, where prices are negotiated down by 5% and buyers have more time and more options when buying properties. However, these benefits are limited to the top end of the market for now. “In the meantime, we have financed numerous cost effective land delivery deals ranging from N$350/m² or N$105 000 per stand, in an attempt to tackle the shortage of affordable land for the Easybond segment. We understand that this is merely the start and at these favourable prices, housing will still remain a challenge for many households. Therefore we will drive effective cost management within our land servicing transactions to increase access to decent, affordable housing. As you may have seen/heard in recent media reports, FNB has always been pro-active in finding solutions to the challenges many first time home buyers are facing, referred to as the Easybond segment above. “To this end, Easybond is a new revolutionary FNB Homeloans product designed to assist first time home buyers who earn between N$3 500 to N$35 000, and who wish to purchase homes between N$100 000 to N$1.2 million. Monthly earnings can be combined for couples wanting to purchase a first home together, or even friends.“The good news is that FNB has relaxed credit policies to accommodate first time buyers under Easybond. The further benefits of this product are that it comes with:• Life cover (which includes permanent and temporary disability benefits that will see your house paid off in full if permanently disabled, or the full instalments for the period of temporary disability being paid). Customers under this product will no longer have to arrange for their own life cover;• no medical tests required for life cover;• free funeral cover to the value of N$20 000; and• free (a very short) home ownership training which comes with a certificate of completion.“Please also be informed that FNB finances houses in most (if not all) proclaimed towns of Namibia. For those wishing to build in rural areas, FNB does have a product available (pension backed home loan) to assist these customers.“As a result of Easybond, the process of owning a home has become much simpler, and faster at FNB.1396986481

Owning a house remains an investment

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Republikein 2025-12-16

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Owning a house remains an investment

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Republikein 2025-12-16

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