MERCHANT Finance has announced a new zero-deposit home loan product aimed at first home buyers.
Chief executive officer, Veilawa Rereiwasaliwa, said the “zero deposit home loan” is especially for people that have just started working, new families, people who are renting and want to secure a home but do not have the funds to put up a deposit, normally a requirement by commercial banks.
“When we looked at the market, we saw that the first challenge at the moment is the deposit with the banks, requiring between 10 to 20 percent of the purchase price,” he said, adding that 20 percent is something that most working people do not have.
“They have to wait a few years to fill up their saving and by the time they build up their savings, the property price has gone up again.”
Mr Rereiwasaliwa said in terms of pricing, they are looking at 3.99 percent fixed for five years with interest on reducing balance for people earning a combined annual income of $50,000 to assist first home buyers.
“If your graduates who got their first job or young couple renting somewhere, there should be a combined income ranging between $30,000 to $50,000, which should be able to get up to $300,000 worth of finance from us which makes owning a home a little bit more achievable for Fiji’s population,” he said.
“And if you’re earning $50,000 in combined annual income or more than $50,000, then we got a fixed rate of 5.99 percent with our variable rate at 8.99 percent.”
Mr Rereiwasaliwa said the company will work on improving its cost of loans.
“As we improve our cost of funds, we’ll look at also improving our rates since the intention here is to get Merchant Finance to be the first choice for when people want to buy their first property. In the meantime, we want to encourage people to start looking for their properties the one they thought that they couldn’t afford because we got a solution for that,” he said.
