JEDDAH: A total of 579,193 Saudi citizens have applied for housing loans from the Real Estate Development Fund (REDF), local Arabic daily Al-Madinah reported Friday quoting official figures released by the fund.
Under the directives issued by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah, the fund will give individual housing loans of up to SR500,000. The fund said it expected to give loans amounting to more than SR156.3 billion this year.
Since its establishment in 1974, the REDF has contributed through its loans to the construction of more than 700,000 housing units. According to market estimates, the housing sector in the Kingdom is in need of investments amounting to about SR1.5 trillion to build 32.2 million housing units during the period 2005-2020. The estimates also said annual investments of SR64 billion would be required to construct 145,00 new houses every year. Meanwhile informed sources expected that the fund would be restructured in such away that its loans to the citizens would come from the banks and other financial institutions and that it would be a guarantor to these loans if the beneficiaries failed to pay on time.
They also said another idea which was currently being mooted was to make the fund itself into a housing investment bank.
© Arab News 2011
