Government won’t be restricting prices for housing and growing mortgage rates

The state won’t be restricting growing prices for housing and growing mortgage rates, the National Bank responded to a question raised during the on-line conference with PM Karim Massimov held at Zakon.kz July 15. “Kazakhstan is a market economy, so any attempts on the part of the government to bridle growing prices for housing or mortgage rates are inadmissible”, the National Bank answered. The Bank stated that the problem of low salaries of public sector employees and their consequent inability to take mortgages cannot be solved through forced reduction of mortgage rates or through forced lowering of requirements to prospective borrowers. According to the Bank, a possible way to ensure affordability of housing is housing savings schemes offered by the House Construction Saving Bank of Kazakhstan. House Construction Saving Bank of Kazakhstan engages in taking long-term deposits from individuals and offers home loans to the same individuals after a certain period of accumulating their savings at the bank. To some categories of borrowers the ARP is 4%.