Real Estate: HF Won’t Start Any New Construction

Mortgage financier HF Group will cease the construction of homes as soon as it’s done with units that are currently underway in order to reduce exposure to the real estate market that has considerably taken a slowed turn in the past few years Robert Kibaara, HF’s chief executive has said.

“We will complete the houses we are building this year and we will not start any new construction.”

The firm is also set to firm free up substantial resources that are currently committed to its property development subsidiary HF Development and Investment Limited (HFDI), which has about Sh1.2 billion in capital.

Assets that belong to HFDI will be transferred over to to HFC Limited, the firm’s other sub-unit which offers banking services. Mr Kibaara says that both subsidiaries have been undertaking development and the sale of properties and the move to close construction at HFDI is meant to eliminate the duplication, HDFI will continue to hold some land and other properties as HFC markets the houses in the company’s portfolio.

Mr Kibaara said that the company’s participation in real estate projects in the future will be through partnerships with other developers.

Reduced demand for houses, increased defaults and the interest rate caps had seen the company post a net loss of Sh598 million in the year ended December 2018 down from Sh126 million net profit it had made the previous year.