Do you earn R3 500 to R15 000 and want a house?

The government has unveiled a plan to provide guarantees for housing loans for people earning above R3 500 up to R15 000 to enable them to obtain bonds from banks.

The scheme called the Finance Linked Individual Subsidy Programme (FLISP) will be implemented through the National Housing Finance Corporation.

Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale said last week the scheme would benefit, among others, school teachers and principals, police and members of the armed forces, nurses, firemen, prison warders and blue collar workers.

People who earn R3 500 and below are catered for under another programme but Sexwale said FLISP might be the way to go in future because continued allocation of grants for housing for the poor was not sustainable.

“To all those people lost in the GAP market- earning too much to qualify for an RDP house and too little to access bank finance, we say: Rest assured. This government cares, we back you to get your bond!”

The minister said: “It is noteworthy to note that the assistance we provide to our citizens in this regard- black and white- empowers them to become real estate owners, to become real participants in the capital markets as asset owners, real players in the property market as sellers or buyers as well as in the financial markets where they can borrow against their assets to advance other economic interests.”

To provide houses for this group, it was essential to deracialise residential space in the country. Sexwale outlined seven things that would be done to speed this up.

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• Firstly, banks would be obliged to provide loans to blacks desiring to buy property in previously white suburbs.
• Secondly, the Social Housing Regulatory Authority has been purchasing high rise buildings in the centres of major towns and cities and refurbishing them and converting them from offices to rented family units, some with an option to buy.
• Thirdly, the Housing Development Agency has acquired land parcels inside cities  and they will be used to settle families.
• Fourthly, land on the city boundaries is being acquired for housing construction in partnership with the private sector.
•  Fifthly, vacant land between cities and townships such as between Johannesburg and Soweto, Cape Town and Gugulethu, Pretoria and Mamelodi, Durban and Umlazi, Port Elizabeth and KwaZakhele, will be used to build housing to locate people closer to towns and cities.
• Sixthly, townships will be upgraded to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants.
• Seventhly, new non-racial towns like Lephalale, Joe Slovo City, will be built.

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