NAIROBI, Kenya, August 20 – Kenya is seeking to build a more inclusive mortgage market by encouraging lenders to look beyond traditional measures of creditworthiness and consider alternative data such as mobile-money transactions, SACCO savings, rental payment histories, utility bills and business transactions.
The approach aims to bring more Kenyans without conventional payslips or formal income records into the formal housing finance market as the government scales up its affordable housing programme.
Principal Secretary for Housing and Urban Development Charles Hinga said Thursday that more than 280,000 housing units are currently under construction, representing about KSh731.5 billion in contract value and supporting more than 640,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Of these, more than 45,000 units are expected to be completed by December at an estimated cost of KSh52 billion.
However, Hinga cautioned that the number of houses constructed should not be the ultimate measure of success, arguing that the focus must shift towards ensuring Kenyans can actually own the homes being built.
“Ownership is not a single door. It should be a corridor with several doors, each opening onto the same outcome,” Hinga said.
His remarks, made during the opening of the 5th Kenya Affordable Housing Conference (KAHC) in Naivasha, highlighted a critical challenge facing the housing programme: ensuring that the financial system can create enough buyers for the growing supply of homes.
Mortgage Qualification
Traditional mortgage lending has largely favoured borrowers with formal employment, regular salaries and predictable monthly incomes.
That model excludes or disadvantages a significant section of Kenya’s workforce, including traders, small-business owners, farmers, freelancers and other self-employed people who may have sufficient income but struggle to prove their ability to service a long-term mortgage.
Hinga called for the development of a standardised affordable housing mortgage with common requirements covering eligibility, underwriting, documentation, valuation and loan servicing.
He said standardisation could make it easier to pool and refinance mortgages, while helping attract more long-term domestic institutional capital into the housing sector.
The PS also proposed a common affordability framework that reflects how non-salaried Kenyans earn, save and spend.
Under the proposed approach, lenders could use mobile-money records, SACCO savings, rental payment histories, utility bills and business transactions as part of their assessment of a borrower’s creditworthiness.
Hinga said the Boma Yangu platform, which has more than 1.29 million registered Kenyans, could also be integrated with lenders to create a smoother process from registration and prequalification through allocation, financing, acquisition and ultimately issuance of title.
“The goal is to move Kenya from approximately 30,000 mortgages towards one million by building not only houses, but the market that places Kenyans inside them,” he said.
Financing Options
Financial institutions, however, say expanding mortgage access cannot be separated from the cost of producing and delivering housing.
KCB Kenya Director of Mortgage Business Caroline Wanjeri, in remarks delivered on her behalf by George Laboso, Senior Manager, Affordable Housing at KCB Bank, said constrained investment finance, rising construction costs and inadequate supply of serviced land were among the factors driving up the final cost of homes.
The bank said financial institutions were therefore moving beyond the traditional role of financing completed houses to supporting the broader housing journey.
“We are looking at the entire housing journey while seeking to make these solutions more accessible and responsive to evolving customer needs,” Wanjeri said.
KCB also called for greater adoption of alternative building materials as a way of reducing construction costs.
The bank said future housing developments should also incorporate energy efficiency, sustainable construction materials and climate-resilient infrastructure.
Affordability, it noted, should extend beyond the price of the house to include access to transport, water, sanitation and other essential services, which can significantly influence the overall cost of living for homeowners.
Informal Economy
The challenge is not unique to Kenya.Shelter Afrique Development Bank Managing Director and CEO Thierno-Habib Hann said conventional housing finance models often assume formal employment, reliable land records, long-term funding and mature financial markets conditions that are absent or limited in many African economies.
With more than 80 per cent of Africa’s workforce earning within the informal economy, Hann said housing finance models needed to reflect how people actually earn and save.
He called for greater use of blended finance, alternative credit assessment, capital-market instruments, green housing finance and digital technologies to widen access to housing.
Kenya Mortgage Refinance Company (KMRC) Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director Johnstone Oltetia said the sector must address the two sides of the housing equation simultaneously: increasing the supply of affordable homes and expanding access to financing.
“This year’s theme speaks to both the scale of the challenge and the promise before us: to close the twin gaps that constrain access at scale,” Oltetia said.
He challenged lenders, policymakers, developers and other stakeholders to focus on practical interventions that can turn housing commitments into actual home ownership.
“Let this be the conference where we stop measuring housing by what we plan, and start measuring it by what we deliver,” Oltetia said.
The debate comes as Kenya enters a crucial phase of its affordable housing programme, with the government under pressure to demonstrate that rising construction activity can translate into affordable ownership for ordinary households.
The central question is whether mortgage providers, SACCOs, development finance institutions and capital markets can expand financing quickly enough to match the growing pipeline of homes.
The two-day KAHC 2026, themed “Scaling the Base: Unlocking Inclusive and Sustainable Housing Solutions,” has brought together policymakers, lenders, SACCOs, developers, development finance institutions and housing specialists from Kenya and other markets to examine ways of expanding access to affordable and sustainable housing.The conference concludes on Friday, August 21.
