Watumishi Housing targets diaspora

Dar es Salaam. Tanzanians in diaspora and those who have no formal employment will benefit from purchasing houses developed by Watumishi Housing Company (WHC).

WHC has said that to increase its customer base in the year 2019, it has come up with new initiatives that will enable it attract new clients including those in the diaspora as well as unemployed.

WHC is a public entity established in 2013, as a property developer and a licensed fund manager for management of the Watumishi Housing Company-Real Estate Investment Trust (WHC-REIT).

WHC, CEO Fred Msemwa said this in an interview with Business Week, highlighting that it now aimed to reach all Tanzanians and not just public servants.

He reiterated that the company builds low cost housing to reach low and middle income earners where research has shown that their houses were 10 per cent to 30 per cent lower compared to similar house found in the market.

Explaining that WHC houses ranged between Sh27 million and Sh76 million thereby enabling even low income earners to afford especially as they can also pay in installments.

“WHC is an affordable house developer, because we aim to address middle income class and lower class groups so that at the end of the day, more people can access decent homes,” he said.

According to him, the company has come up with a campaign for 2019 which includes at least three initiatives that will broaden their customer base.

“When the company came into force in 2013, our main target was to cater for government employees in order to ensure they have decent houses at affordable rates,’ he said.

However he noted that they have expanded the scope to include groups of employees working in the private sector, diaspora groups in a special arrangement as well as person not employed but contributing to the social security schemes.

Explaining he said that, employees in the private sector will now enjoy services that were accorded to the public sector by WHC in the same terms and conditions.

Adding that, the arrangement includes simplified payment terms, where customers are given option to issue progressive payments which includes making payments while the company continues to build until the house is completed.

Mr Msemwa said that when the house is completed, the customer is given additional time to complete payment without any charges of interest.

He named another initiative as the tenant purchase arrangement where the customer is allowed to stay in the house while paying monthly payments similar to rent monthly fee but at the end of the day the payments is treated as charge for purchasing the house.

Further he noted that WHC had extended its payment period from the initial 1 year to 20 years to 1 year to 25 years.

“Our customers are not required to pay upfront, they can pay atwhatever year but at a maximum of 25 years,” he said.

In another development, he said that in order to expand their customer base, they have also included clients that are not employed anywhere but are members of social security funds in the country contributing on a voluntary basis.

Further he noted that they were also eyeing to serve customers in the diaspora market so long as they were Tanzanians.

According to him, they were in talks with social security fund schemes so that they could be sending their contributions and be included in the arrangement to access affordable housing.