NHT Scales Up Housing Spend by $12 Billion in New Budget

Kingston, Jamaica, 22 February 2024 — The National Housing Trust will spend 46.58 billion Jamaican dollars in the 2024/25 financial year to commence construction of more than 15,000 housing solutions and deliver 3,664 completed units to contributors. The figure represents a 12.61-billion-dollar increase on the previous year’s housing expenditure, making it the most ambitious single-year housing investment in the Trust’s recent history.

The details were contained in the Jamaica Public Bodies Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure tabled in the House of Representatives, confirming that housing expenditure will account for 92 per cent of the NHT’s total capital budget for the year. Contribution collections are projected to rise by 8.5 per cent to 61.68 billion dollars, reflecting both a growing workforce and improved compliance.

What the Money Will Fund

The bulk of the increased expenditure is directed toward the commencement of 15,009 new housing solutions across the island. Of these, more than 96 per cent are targeted at lower-middle-income to low-income contributors, a significant policy signal about the direction the Trust intends to take following years of criticism that its portfolio had drifted toward the upper end of the income range. The planned solutions include 4,309 two-bedroom homes priced at an average below 13 million dollars, 7,600 one-bedroom units averaging below 10 million dollars, and 3,100 serviced lots priced under 4 million dollars.

The NHT will also process an estimated 8,955 mortgage loans during the year and will initiate construction of a new branch office in Clarendon, expanding service delivery to contributors in that parish. The Trust’s External Financing Mortgage Programme, introduced in the prior year, is expected to free up additional NHT liquidity that can be redirected into construction financing rather than direct mortgage lending.

The Credibility Question

The scale of the stated ambition has attracted scrutiny. Critics have noted that the NHT’s actual annual delivery of completed housing solutions has historically fallen well short of its projected starts, with actual completions in recent years measuring in the low thousands against targets that run to fifteen thousand or more. The distinction between housing starts and completed, habitable units is significant, and the gap between the two has been a persistent source of public frustration.

The Trust’s decision to channel the increase in expenditure almost entirely into the lower end of the price range is the more meaningful signal in this budget. If that commitment holds through the year and into the delivery phase, it would represent a substantive reorientation of the NHT’s priorities. If it does not, the 2024/25 budget will be remembered as another year of ambitious targets and modest results. The property market will be watching the delivery numbers, not the projections.