Bank Windhoek financed 350 properties worth N$518 million in the Central Region of Namibia in 2022.
The average value per unit was N$1.8 million, according to the bank’s Head of Specialist Finance, Saara Shivute.
She said the financing included a mix of upper and lower-end properties, indicating a buyer’s market.
“While developments such as Osona Village are ongoing, primarily due to readily available serviced land and a massive demand for housing in the lower to middle-income bracket,” Shivute said.
The bank made the announcement during its annual Central Estate Agents Awards ceremony, where it also recognized the top-performing estate agencies and agents.
Rightmove Properties Windhoek, Aqua Real Estate Trust, and Just Property Group were the top three estate agencies, while Hermanus Van Aardt Dreyer from Aqua Real Estate Trust, Gretha Dos Santos from Just Property Group, and Anita Dames from Rightmove Properties Windhoek were the top three achievers of the year estate agents.
Immaculant Real Estate’s Horatius Abrahams and Okomita Development’s Jacko Koen shared the joint award for silver as the estate agent with the highest volume of transactions. On Show Properties’ Linda Visagie won the third position respectively.
Koen noted that 2022 was good, especially in the affordable market, while Abrahams said 2022 required a lot of guts, especially since many customers had financial challenges due to the pandemic.
The award recipients, however, expressed concern over the uncertainty surrounding interest rate hikes.
Investec expects Namibia to continue increasing its interest rates into 2023 to stamp out high inflation, a development that is driving up debt servicing for homeowners.
The financial services group noted that Namibia and South Africa could hike their interest rates by 50bps in the first quarter of 2023, but this could be followed by a 25bps cut in the third and fourth quarters of the same year to bring the repo rates in South Africa and Namibia back to 7% by the end of the fourth quarter of 2023.
