NT CLAIRSTATE5 South Africa has about 18 million households, but the formal home loans market comprises only about 1.6 million accounts.
The gap market represents a potential housing opportunity worth well over R2 trillion in property value alone.
This is even before one even considers rental income, home loan income, secondary market activity, insurance, municipal rates, furniture, renovations and all the other economic activity that follows housing, says alternative home financier Sentinel Homes.
South Africa has a severe housing shortage with President Cyril Ramaphosa recently putting the backlog at between 2.5 million and 3 million homes, says Renier Kriek, Managing Director (MD) at Sentinel Homes.
He says the pain is most acute in the so-called gap market, where households earn too much to qualify for fully subsidised housing, but too little to access the mainstream private market comfortably.
