New BSP policies to boost housing – SHDA

The country’s top property developers welcomed Central Bank’s moves to make housing loans more accessible, saying this will pave the way for the construction of more houses, higher production of steel and other materials, and creation of more jobs.

Subdivision Housing Developers Association (SHDA), the country’s leading organization of private developers, said the reduction of cash outlay or down payment in acquiring a property means the expansion of both the sellers’ and buyers’ markets of the housing sector.

"There will be more players in the now depressed market and there will be more buyers of new houses. The CB schemes couldn’t have been more helpful," SHDA president Jesus Atencio said.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) over the weekend announced it is considering a proposal to allow banks to finance as much as 90 percent of low-and middle-income housing loans not exceeding P2 million. It made the proposal barely three months after raising the value from 70 to 80 percent.

BSP Governor Rafael Buenaventura said housing has one of the biggest multiplier effects "as it spurs the recovery of construction, production of steel and provide jobs to more people."

Atencio said this "milestone policy announcement" would help developers ensure the fulfillment of their pledge to President Arroyo to build more than 200,000 housing units by 2004. The pledge, given to the President last week, consists of low and middle-income houses worth a total of P100 billion.

will be bolder in buying properties," Atencio said. "And with Pag-IBIG loans fixed at only nine percent for 25 years, down from the previous 12 percent, there is no more reason to fear."

SHDA has also lauded the BSP’s moves to extend the eligibility of rediscounting development loans for the purpose of constructing houses. "This means more loans available for housing which leads to more construction," Atencio said.

All these big policy BSP initiatives, Atencio said, recognize that housing does not only have the biggest multiplier effect, "but upholds the time-tested truth that housing, given its almost zero non-performing loan ratio, has among the most worthy credit recipients."