Housing and You…A 3-bedroom home for $9M; a two-bedroom for $4.9M

Jun 09, 2013 News

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By Leonard Gildarie
This week has been a hectic one with many emails and calls on housing pertaining to the articles of the past weeks. I decided early what to write on, but a number of developments made me change course.
The first was news of the death of a media colleague, Courtney Gibson, and the second was Friday’s launching of government’s biggest housing assistance project at Providence, East Bank Demerara.
Regarding Courtney, we met about a decade ago in St. Maarten, where I had been offered employment at a newspaper there. St. Maarten is a tourist island in the Eastern Caribbean – part of the Dutch Kingdom – that does not manufacture anything and depends on visits by foreigners for its existence.

Courtney, a former Editor at the Guyana Chronicle, died in the US, from cancer, but his passing brought back memories of life in St. Maarten. Myself and a friend helped establish the St. Maarten/Guyanese Foundation and Courtney was elected President. He was upset after at the last minute, I turned down a lucrative job offer at his newspaper. Perhaps, I would have still been there had I accepted.
There were over 5,000 Guyanese living there and what struck me most was how well they adapted, helping to care for that island, all 80 square miles of it, because its appearance was what made tourists return time and again. They would not throw garbage on the street. I quickly learnt to do the same. There were many times I wished that back home, we could have been like that.
I thought of how we, as Guyanese, yearn for our country to develop standards, to be clean, to have systems that work like other countries. We blame the authorities for everything, including corruption, yet we pay police bribes; we refuse to stop to allow someone to cross the road; we refuse to allow the lady with the baby to move to the head of the line; we more than often forget to say thank you or please.
I do believe that there is a correlation between our attitude and what happens to Guyana in the next five to 10 years. Unless we quickly start displaying intolerance to what I would describe as negative attitudes, we may continue to only dream of improvement.

 

Caring
Owning a home is a responsibility. In my case, there is the mortgage, water rates, electricity bills, cable, food on the table, and managing a budget that often just does not balance.
I don’t like to see garbage so we have a private contractor that comes around collecting every Saturday.
In La Parfaite Harmonie, West Bank Demerara, where I live, I became angry after awhile. The next door lot has not been taken up yet. The owners would come from time to time, especially when I am not home. I have to pay every few weeks to weed around my fence as the weeds from that yard would start climbing. When issued with a houselot, you have a mandatory period to start building.
The Housing Ministry is tackling the problem of non-occupancy, reportedly already seizing several plots of land across the country. I wish it was faster in my area.
Just over 18 months ago, several of the roads in my section of the housing scheme were completed. My section cost over $130M, I learnt. Today, I am unhappy because the roads have deteriorated badly. A large part of the blame is on the residents who are building. The home owners, in a hurry to complete the work, would allow the workers to mix cement on the roadway. Vehicles are forced to drive at the side of the road because of the sand and dirt that have been carelessly left there.
Despite the Housing Ministry’s warnings, there is no letting up. Along the main access road, someone dumped a pile of dirt at the side. Needless to say, the roadway around the pile has been badly damaged. Nobody knows where the owner of that land is.
Driving around the different housing schemes, the story is the same. A few weeks ago, the Housing Ministry was in the area warning persons not to mix their cement on the road, and ordered the removal of material – all in vain. The situation has not changed. The sad reality is that the homeowner would have to live right where the pothole has started to develop into craters.
We have to start caring, to be a little more firm in protecting what is ours. Be firm with your contractor. What would it cost to mix in the yard?
We also have problems with cows in the area. Last year, my little dog was kicked to the head by a cow that is part of a herd left daily in the area. She died instantly. It was a hard blow to the kids who cried for a number of days. Needless to say, I refuse to get another one. I talked to the owner of the cow and he raised his cutlass threateningly. The next day, the cows were back again. We have to start taking action now.

 

1,000 homes
Last week, we spoke on the “Young Professionals” homes costing just under $14M that the Housing Ministry is building in Eccles. It was an experiment, the Ministry says, to determine whether there was interest in these ready-made homes. Obviously there was, because the ministry has sold-off all the homes before they have even been completed.
To encourage higher occupancy, government said it was building homes under different programmes and in collaboration with contractors, banks and hardware suppliers.
On Friday, Government went further. It opened up a new area north of Mocha and about two miles behind the National Stadium at Providence. There, the Central Housing and Planning Authority, an arm of the Housing Ministry, will oversee the building of 1,000 homes that will go to eligible applicants on completion.
According to President Donald Ramotar, the demand for these ‘turn-key’ homes has been overwhelming. The indications are that persons don’t want to take on the stress of building.
Housing Minister Irfaan Ali was even more ambitious. His ministry is hoping to complete clearing and infrastructure works, likes drains and roads, within eight months. In 18 months, the successful applicant would be able to move in.
As I have said over and over again, the process to own a home and dealing with the responsibilities after is nothing easy. I do believe that there should be some workshop or even counseling to teach a landowner how to move onto the next stage. If you are building, issues like shopping smart and managing a construction budget are critical. Not many can handle a few millions in their hands and the temptations that come.
According to Minister Ali, the homes in Perseverance, the new housing scheme, will include two designs. The ‘Buttercup Cottage’ will be similar to the $4.6M “revolving homes” that I wrote about two weeks ago. This, however, will cost around $4.9M, inclusive of land. It is around 600 square feet, concrete, and includes two bedrooms, washroom, septic tank, kitchen and open-concept dining and living areas along with a patio. It will be built to allow extensions and an additional floor.
Then there is the one that the Ministry said will be the hot seller. Called the “Bungalow Orchid”, this three-bedroom home will be around 900-1000 square feet, built of concrete, fully painted, tiled, with sheet rock ceiling, lighting, zinc roof and sash windows. It will also come with a complete washroom, septic tank, kitchen, and common dining and living area with a patio.
The bungalow is priced at around $9M, the Ministry said, and is the middle income home. Another storey can be added to this structure.
The Ministry is now working with Courts Guyana to have new homeowners take an optional furnished home, under the “1,000 Homes” programme, it was disclosed.
It is recalled that for the low income loans, the repayment for a $5M mortgage can work out to around$20,000 monthly, thanks to special arrangements at the New Building Society for the turn-key homes. I estimate that for around $9M, the monthly repayment should hover around $50,000.
Now, I have been inundated with questions over the applications. Next week, I will dwell on the application process for a house lot at the Ministry, and what to expect from the bank if you are taking a loan. Work is now being done to compile a handbook for new homeowners that will guide them, and a website that will seek to make housing more understandable.

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Enjoy your weekend and please feel free to continue dropping your comments at [email protected].

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