Amlak Finance and Real Estate Investment aims to direct EGP 350m in mortgage financing during the current year, according to Amlak CEO Hatem Amer.
Amer told Daily News Egypt that the total volume of funding provided by his company until the middle of this year amounted to EGP 220m, including funding for individuals and others within the Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) mortgage finance initiative.
Amer added that EGP 83m has been provided as part of the CBE’s initiative for real estate finance in four months. Amlak joined the initiative last February.
He pointed out that the total amount of funding granted by his company thus far is EGP 480m.
The company has not begun factoring activity yet, because it needs more financial capabilities, Amer explained.
“The real estate mortgage sector faces some challenges, including the lack of awareness among Egyptians about the importance of real estate mortgage funding,” noted Amer, adding that the initiative of the CBE to support mortgage finance has succeeded in increasing the spread of mortgage finance, adding “the increase in interest rates is another challenge to mortgage finance, especially after the hikes in the interest rate value in the past period, which negatively affected the sector.”
Amer denied an imminent real estate bubble, affirming that this market is far away from a bubble due to the real demand.
The real estate mortgage finance portfolio of 11 companies operating in the Egyptian market reached EGP 9bn by the end of the first quarter of the current year, compared to EGP 8.47bn in December 2017—an increase of EGP 554.5m.
The companies’ financing during the first quarter of this year amounted to EGP 554.5m, distributed through nine companies. Amlak topped the sector from January to March with EGP 133.1m.
