Microfinance Approach to Housing: The Community Mortgage Program

摘要

The paper provides an assessment of the Community Mortgage Program as a government-housing program for households belonging to the lowest income deciles. The assessment was carried out using the case study approach. Four CMP communities in Quezon City, Rizal and Quezon Province were selected as case study areas. The study identified three major problems facing CMP: low collection rate, NHMFCu92s slow processing of papers and funding requirements. Institutional changes have been recommended in the paper to make the CMP a more efficient and effective housing program. The feasibility of linking the CMP to the formal sector (e.g. banking sector) was likewise assessed. The paper observes that the present set-up, where the government provides low-income households with loans for housing while the banks grant higher income households with housing loans, remains to be the optimal one. The household data gathered by the study was used to estimate a housing demand function for low-income households. The results obtained in the paper conform to those observed in other studies of housing demand.