A $500,000 Young Owners Deposit Fund, lower interest rates for mortgagors, up to $3 million off each housing unit, and a rent-to-own programme, are just some of the initiatives the People’s National Party (PNP) will pursue to make homeownership more affordable for Jamaicans, if it returns to office after the general election due this year.

The commitment was given by Opposition Leader Mark Golding during his three-hour-long contribution to the 2025/26 Budget Debate at Gordon House on Tuesday.

Declaring Jamaica to be 190,000 housing units short of what is required, Golding outlined a raft of measures to put more Jamaicans on the path to homeownership. He said the housing deficit has forced 21 per cent (nearly 600,000) of Jamaicans into informal settlements.

“The prevalence of inequitable land distribution and unaffordable housing fuel intergenerational poverty and crime. It is time for real solutions, not photo ops for a PR exercise in social housing that will not move the needle,” Golding declared, taking a swipe at the Government’s much-touted social housing programme.

As part of the PNP’s strategy to give more Jamaicans access to housing, Golding said a future PNP Administration will stop the annual extraction of $11.4 billion from the National Housing Trust (NHT) for budgetary support.

“This was a four-year fiscal measure, in the hardest of times, during a tough International Monetary Fund programme,” Golding said.

“It was never our intention that it would go beyond 2017. But this Government, having criticised it so trenchantly when they were in Opposition, even supporting an unsuccessful lawsuit to challenge it, then turned around and extended it by an additional eight years since 2017, including once again in this budget for 2025/26,” he added.

“We will end this annual extraction of resources from the NHT and recapitalise the NHT with lands to restore value for the $136.8 billion that has been taken from it to fund the successive budgets over the past 12 years. We will also repurpose the NHT and have it focus on its core mandate of providing affordable housing to contributors,” he said.

Golding stated that by using this recapitalisation mechanism the PNP would exclude the cost of the land from the price of houses built by the NHT over the next five years, and pass through a reduction of between $2.5 million and $3 million to contributors purchasing those homes.

“That is social and economic justice for the contributors whose institution has been depleted of resources to ease the fiscal burden on the country. Teachers, nurses, police officers and other public servants, young professionals, persons with disabilities, and indeed any individual contributing to the NHT will be able to own their homes,” said the Opposition leader.

Seemingly targeting public sector employees in an election year, Golding said, “The PNP knows that public sector workers are hurting from the way in which the pay rationalisation was done, so we have come up with these measures to show our appreciation for your service to the nation.”

The second strategy outlined by Golding would see the NHT creating a “special package of benefits for public servants, young people, and low-wage earners. He noted that public sector workers used to enjoy a preferred interest rate on their NHT loans, but said “this Government took it away”.

“We will restore public sector workers’ access to a reduction in their NHT interest rates, reducing their interest rates by one per cent, depending on their income band.

“Police, nurses, teachers, doctors, firefighters and all other public servants will get back this benefit,” Golding told the Parliament.

Additionally, the PNP will give public sector workers a break when it comes to commencing their loan payments. Golding cited that currently when an NHT loan is disbursed, the borrower must commence payment in the following month.

“We recognise that buying a home can have lots of other costs attached. We will therefore allow public sector workers a three-month moratorium period after their NHT loan disbursement before they commence loan payments, giving them more time to recover from the expenses, buy furniture, and get their place ready to move in,” said Golding.

He also promised that while the current debt service ratio (DSR) required by NHT is 33.3 per cent, meaning that the loan payments cannot exceed 33.3 per cent of a beneficiary’s gross salary, this would be extended to a preferred 40 per cent debt service ratio for public servants, allowing them room to take a larger loan from NHT to buy their home.

Golding also promised more for young people.

“We recognise that often the hardest hurdle for young people in buying a home is the deposit. Well, we have you in mind. The next PNP Government will establish a special Young Owners Deposit Fund of $1 billion within the NHT, using its resources to enable young persons under 35 years old to access $500,000 towards their deposit once they have been an NHT contributor for at least two years. They will be able to apply to the NHT and get their $500,000 Deposit Grant,” said Golding.

He also spoke to the PNP’s plans to lower the cost of housing by absorbing the cost of insurance on homes and its intention to implement its much-talked-about rent-to-own initiative.

Citing that the cost of peril insurance for homeowners continues to increase, moving up by over 25 per cent last year alone and with the increase passed on to mortgagors, Golding said this was particularly hard on NHT borrowers in the lowest band, who earn $30,000 per month or less.

“They also need a break. The next PNP Government will help these low-income NHT borrowers by absorbing the cost of the insurance on their homes. This means that their monthly payments will be lower, and that they will be able to afford a bigger mortgage loan,” he said.

He also pointed to Jamaicans who earn their living in the informal sector and are unable to produce a payslip to establish their income.

“Many other people have formal employment but end up paying rent because they cannot save enough for the deposit to pay down on a house. We will roll out the NHT rent-to-own plan to address these two situations,” he said to applause from Opposition members.

Golding explained that a person earning in the informal economy who wants to buy an NHT house will be able to go into possession as a tenant paying a monthly rent, equivalent to a mortgage loan payment, and by establishing their ability to pay over a short period of time they will be then be deemed eligible to access the mortgage loan from NHT to buy the house.

“The other person, who cannot save enough to pay the deposit to buy a house, will be able to rent an NHT house under the NHT rent-to-own programme, and once a specified portion of the rent payments (between 50 per cent and 75 per cent) adds up to the deposit he/she will be treated as having paid the deposit and can access a mortgage for the balance to buy the house,” said Golding.

“This rent-to-own programme provides a creative solution to two of the main hurdles to homeownership in Jamaica,” he stated.