Whereas affordable housing still remains a big challenge in the country, most developers have concentrated on the high end segment where returns are high and neglected low income earners. This has not only facilitated the growth of slums where living conditions are deplorable but kept those with low income and the poor with no answers to their demand for owning homes.
Most people in urban areas spend their third earnings on rent which means saving for the future especially the young people and disadvantaged groups like women and the elderly remains a challenge that in the end they will find themselves in a fix and be forced to live in rented homes with their families throughout their lives but also miss out on investing for the future like owning a farm. But if most people had shelter that means they will be able to live decent lives and increase their disposable income to save on other things like education, buying a farm, health insurance and the rest.
But before you lose hope, think about forming a cooperative or joining one and influence members to come up with big ideas for lifetime like owning a home. Mr Herbert Tushabe, the Operations manager Amity Realtors explains that whereas many cooperatives are formed to save and borrow money to boost their small businesses, members can come up with big ideas like building a home and seeing themselves out of slums and the troubling tenant life.
He says a cooperative is a social-economic model that ensures housing remains affordable and within the reach of the majority of people, especially the low income earners.
Through cooperatives members can mobilise resources in a common pool thereby taking advantage of economies of scale, buy land and own homes for members. One of the key points that stands out for cooperatives is that it has membership with a common bond and drawn from a common profession or economic status and thus decision making is very flexible.
Under cooperatives with the savings, members can chose to buy a chunk of land using the pooled resources and subdivide it into plots among members and also mobilise for construction of a home for each member. But alternatively the members can chose to buy a plot for individual members each at a time and when they are through with buying for all members they start building for each member through the same process
Mr Herbert Tushabe, the Operations manager Amity Realtors explains that the advantage with cooperatives is that members can be able to utilise savings raised by members than getting money from financial institutions there by mitigating the costs of financing.
He says cooperatives is a flexible and adoptable means of proving shelter to the poor and middle income earners before adding that the strength of cooperatives is that they can be able to own large parcels of land, huge financial asset through shareholding and savings of members
Mr Tushabe explains that at Amity Realtors they are positioned to work with cooperatives by offering flexible land payment terms, friendlier and affordable policies to enable cooperative members own homes before adding that well managed cooperative movement a sure path to own homes noting that accessing housing through mortgage is still a challenge because most people are still poor.
At Amity Realtors Ltd, we encourage savings and investment groups to have land as we have so far sold to over 50 savings and investment clubs in Uganda. If you are a savings and investment group out there please start your journey of buying land with us today.