Zimpapers Logo

Property Reporter
The African Union for Housing Finance (AUHF), a member-based association of 61 mortgage banks, building societies, housing corporations and other organisations involved in the mobilisation of funds for shelter and housing on the African continent, will next week conduct a two and half day’s workshop at a local hotel in Harare.

The workshop, running under the theme: “Lending to borrowers with informal income” will be co-hosted by AUHF’s local members CABS and the Zimbabwe Association for Housing Finance (ZAHF).

Other organisations that are part of the two day workshop include Centre for Affordable Housing Finance (CAHF), HDFC India, Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC), as well as the Housing and Development Finance Consultants (HDFC) in Africa.

According to Ambrose Matika, executive secretary with the Zimbabwe Association for Housing Finance, the workshop will have a practical focus, targeted at improving operations and capacities within institutions.

The workshops are intended to enable, members that are involved in the funding of houses, to respond to the challenges and opportunities within the context of their businesses and supporting better engagement between the public and private sectors.
“The targeted audience is personnel in operations of housing finance institutions, commercial banks, and implementation/development departments in the construction sector.

“The programmes will also be made open to housing and housing finance practitioners who are government officials in land, housing, and finance departments.”

AUHF says the main objective of this two and half days’ workshop is to capacitate, equip and finance the participants with concepts, principles and tools for underwriting informal income households, so they can partake in the housing finance market.
The participants will be exposed to case studies and best practises of methodologies used to underwrite and lend to households earning informal incomes in some African countries and India.

The two day event will also go through an overview of Zimbabwe’s economic climate including identifying investment opportunities.

The conference will also sort to understand the makeup of informal income earners and their sources of income as well as explore suitable products for informal income earners.