First loans given for low-cost housing

FINANCE Minister Charilaos Stavrakis yesterday delivered the first 30 loan approvals totalling €4.2 million, to young couples who applied for a housing loan to the Housing Finance Corporation, under the government scheme for acquisition of a first home.

Stavrakis also called on “other young couples with relatively low incomes to benefit from the generous housing policy to acquire their first home”

“The Finance Ministry in cooperation with the Housing Finance Corporation once again defeated bureaucracy. Just fifteen days after the first announcement of the plan we have already approved 30 loan applications, particularly to young couples…the total amount of the approvals was over €4 million from the overall €200-million scheme”.

According to Stavrakis the government had drafted the housing scheme within the framework of its social policy, with a repayment period of up to 30 years and zero interest rates for the first two years “perhaps the most competitive interest rate on the market for the following 28 years”, he said.

He said that 16 of the loans concerned the construction of a new home. Stavrakis said this was important for the government because building new homes meant proportionally more jobs, which was one of the purposes of this project.

The remaining 14 loans concerned the purchase of ready apartments or houses. According to the Finance Minister only one from the 30 loans approved will be used to purchase a house from the Housing Development Organisation.

“When the project was announced many said that this plan was drawn up in such a way to satisfy some organisations and businessmen adding,” he said.

“The evidence we have before us now proves otherwise.”

Chairman of the Housing Finance Corporation Christos Loizides. “Interest has been enormous. We are receiving hundreds of phone calls and we are confident that in a few days the number of applications will increase even more because more people are being informed over the scheme,” said Loizides.

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