THE Suva to Nausori corridor has the highest demand for housing, says Housing Authority of Fiji chief executive officer Robert Sen.
He said the housing sector was a driver for economic development in Fiji.
“The demand for housing is increasing a lot,” he said.
“We have found that customers were coming over from rural areas in search of work, education and they have settled in and now they require their first homes,” Mr Sen said.
“Demand is created through urban drift and through natural growth of population.” He said so far, the Housing Authority had 13,256 customers.
“So the demand is high.
“Basically, when you look at their criteria, whether they are fully first home buyers and also whether their earnings are below $50,000. “A high number of people have registered. Now we have done a MOU with Fiji Revenue and Customs Service (FRCS) and the Fiji National Provident Fund (FNFP) and we keep the data, making sure that the applications being provided to us are valid and cross-checked to make sure the criteria is correct.”
He said the organisation had sold 1448 lots in various subdivisions and it was under mixed development as well.
He added homes on these lots had been sold on a development cost rather than a market price.
Meanwhile, Mr Sen highlighted that so far, they had provided assistance towards the relief for COVID-19 where customers got relief in terms of their repayments.
He added, so far, 409 applications had been received, of which 340 were approved.
He revealed that under the Social Housing Policy since 2011, the authority had assisted as many as 410 customers amounting to about $6.9 million.
