Friday, October 20, 2006

‘Affordable’ Houses No Longer Cheap

The cost to build starter homes in low-income areas, typically priced between R120,000 and R240,000, has surged by close to 50% over the past two and a half years.

This price increase is placing huge strain on affordable housing delivery, says Jopie van Honschooten, head of the Banking Association SA’s affordable housing initiative. Van Honschooten says lengthy delays in municipal planning, zoning and approval processes have pushed up developers’ holding costs significantly. This has seen the price of the same starter home of about 40 sq m rise from an average R132,000 in January 2004 to R195,000 in June this year.

Research commissioned by the Banking Association SA shows that the shortage of affordable homes aimed at households earning between R1,500 and R7,500/month, is currently at around 650,000. Van Honschooten says unless housing delivery is speeded up significantly the backlog could rise to 750,000 units by 2010.

He says SA needs to build at least 135,000 new homes/year over the next five years to close this gap by 60%. Only around 15,000 new affordable homes were built in 2005. - Property 24

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