Mortgage Finance activities have witnessed "significant improvement in the first nine months of 2015, as the volume of mortgage funds grew by 57% from EGP 445m in the same period in 2014 to EGP 697m, announced head of the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA) Sherif Sami on Sunday. Sami added that the total value of the accounts of mortgage finance companies has amounted to EGP 2.6bn by the end of September 2015. In July 2014, President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi issued a legislative amendment to the Mortgage Law, which would allow, for the first time ever, companies with foreign capital to finance mortgage in Egypt, in a move to provide low-income housing. Mortgage companies have increased the funding provided in the real estate sector to EGP 270.4m between January and March 2015, compared to EGP 126.5m in the same period last year. The total mortgages granted by all companies since the beginning of the real estate finance activity to the end of March 2015 increased to EGP 5bn. This figure compares to EGP 4.4bn during the same period in 2014, showing an increase rate of 16.4%, according to the EFSA. In February 2014, the Central Bank of Egypt announced it had allocated EGP 10bn ($1.44bn) to finance low-income housing projects, with the aim of boosting the construction and real estate sectors. The money will be sent to the banks in the form of deposits, over a period of 20 years at low interest rates. Low-income citizens who qualify to benefit from the programme will be lent the money at a yearly interest rate of 7% to 8%. Mortgage Finance Fund head Mai Abdel Hamid said in earlier statement that the real estate market is suffering from a deficit of 2m housing units annually, affirming that partnership with the private sector is the solution to increase the number of housing units.
