The Affordability of the Provided Housing Units in Egypt; Case Study of the National Housing Program (NHP)

Abstract

Over the past decades, the Egyptian housing market was not functioning well. The low-income residents always had a problem with affording a housing unit that fits their income level. This paper overviews the current state of the housing market in Egypt and analyzes the previous housing programs and the affordability of these programs for lower income residents. With a focus on the most recently completed program, which has been initiated during the ruling of Ex-president Mubarak titled, "The National Housing Program". A program that is advertised as a housing program for low-income categories However, unfortunately the ratio between the price of the offered units and their Quintiles income indicates that a large tier of low -income groups cannot benefit from such housing schemes. This gives an indicator that, "the poor never benefit from the government housing program".

This paper adopts a theoretical analysis to analyze the housing schemes introduced under the NHP and the affordability of these schemes for different tiers of the society, Furthermore, site visits and several interviews have been carried out to find out the percentage spent on housing from, "owners or renters" income.

Keywords: Affordability, Housing provision, Low-income categories, National Housing Program