Africa-Press – Kenya. Kenyan microlender, Jijenge Credit Limited, plans to increase its loan financing to tap into opportunities in the real estate sector, as it seeks to diversify its loan portfolio.
The firm’s CEO Peter Macharia in an interview said that the move was being inspired by recent market trends, which suggest that the industry was on the recovery path from the pandemic–driven economic downturn seen in the last few months.
“We are seeing a lot of opportunities in this space, owing to the fact that the high demand for loans in land acquisition by our clients as well as improved industry projections,” said Macharia.
He also attributed the move to the recent launch of the National Land Information Management System, known as Ardhi Sasa, in April.
Under the new system, a Kenyan can search for land transactions, transfers, and registrations in the comfort of their home.
At the click of a button, citizens will carry out online transactions, drastically reducing human interactions—a frequent source of fraud and a definite cause of delays and inconveniences.
The system is also expected to eliminate fraud, corruption and manipulation of critical land records as well as long queues at the registries.
Further, the system is hoped will resolve land problems as it will provide an updated, verified database of land records that are easily and readily available.
Macharia made those remarks in an interview after receiving the Most Improved Land Title Based Credit Provider in the 2021 Real Estate Excellence Awards held recently.
“We hope to ride on this acknowledgment to bridge that credit demand for potential homeowners locked out by our big brothers,” said Macharia.
The Top score Brands Real Estate Awards are held to acknowledge excellence and the need to maintain high standards within the real estate sector, an industry that is slowly healing from the pandemic shocks.
Recent Knight Frank report showed that the prime residential sale prices in Nairobi marginally improved by 0.1 per cent over the past 12 months to June this year.
Getting a mortgage in Kenya means getting a loan from a financial instruction at an interest in which the property is the security.
The mortgage agreement gives you the ownership of the property and you can start living in it as soon as the mortgage has been approved and paid to the property owner, but tedious financing requirements by banks continue to lock Kenyans from their dream homes.
Typical providers of real estate financing are financial institutions such as banks, cooperative societies, debt financiers and Saccos, and the financiers may fund real estate at any stage of property development for any properties.
Jijenge Credit is a non-deposit taking microfinance lending institution with over 10,000 clients with regional presence and mainly handles logbook financing for vehicles, asset financing, loans on title deeds and rental incomes.
It also deals in bid bonds, import duty financing, insurance premium financing, salary check-off loans among others.
