34
Home Ownership Scheme
93. The figures for housing completions I have given include those for
the Home Ownership Scheme. It is proposed to build 42,000 flats for
sale over the next 9 years. This programme envisages the completion of
8,500 in 1979/80 and between 5 and 6,000 in cach of the successive
years to 1985/86. They will vary in size between 400 and 600 sq. ft.
Negotiations are also well in hand with real estate developers for an
experimental Private Sector Participation Scheme.
94.
They will be sold to eligible buyers at prices below
those prevailing in the open market. On the strength of a Government
partial guarantee against default, special mortgage arrangements have
been negotiated with leading banks which will provide for a standard
repayment period of 15 years, interest rates of between 7 and 9 per
annum and a minimum down payment of 10% of the sale price.
arrangements compare very favourably with open market terms.
95.
These
Initially, cligible households will be those caring up
to $3,500 a month, and public housing tenants who are willing to surrender
their existing tenancios irrespective of income. Other rules of
eligibility and disqualinication will be announced mortly. Applications
for flats in the first six estates will be invited from members of the
public early next year.
96.
I am
I wish to congratulate the Financial Secretary and the
working party on having taken the scheme to this advanced stage.
confident that it will be a success and ill meet a need felt by many
for the sense of security that home ownership confers.
/Education....
- Lda. V DE JANE T