CBE drops grace period for 40/60 condo payment

The state owned Commercial Bank of Ethiopia has dropped the grace period those who won the lottery for 40 /60 condos and made a contractual agreement with the bank and housing agency.
In the previous condo transfer at least one year grace periods were given however, for no apparent reason the bank began receiving payments one month after the contract was signed with an interest rate of 9.5 pct.
The price is 6,992 birr per square meter. Those buying one bedroom condos must complete payments in 10 years, while those with two or three bedroom condos must pay off the loan in 12 years.
Buyers who talked to Capital said that CBE should not have made them pay money before they received the house.
Abebe Tesfaye, who recently won a lottery for a condo said: “the houses are in the finishing stages and we will live in them in a year but CBE doesn’t understand that this means we must rent another house so we end up paying double the cost with the one year grace period we are more capable of paying off our loan,” he said.
Capital was unable to get a response from CBE. Condo houses cost from 415,328 birr to 692,214 depending on how many rooms are in the house. They measure from 61 to 123sqm.
When the 40/60 condo housing schemes began in 2013, AASHDE set the price at 2289, 3300 and 3860 birr per square meter for one, two and three bedrooms respectively. However during the last 40/60 condo lottery the agency increased prices by 91,470 birr while 3 and 4 bedroom apartments wend up 110,650 and 124,000 birr respectively.
Currently 130,000 condo houses of 20/80 and 40/60 are under construction which began five years ago and it takes a minimum of two years to deliver these house to the beneficiaries. High corruption in condo construction, poor auditing, poor supervision, inefficient contractors are behind the much delayed condo construction. Recently the Fedral Audit Bureau ordere an immediate audit work to understand the weakness in the house finance.
In the past 15 years near 200,000 houses were transferred but over one million are still waiting.