Édgar Elizalde lives in Bogotá and two years ago he bought an apartment in Terrazas de Molinos from Zabdi Construcciones. For the 140 million pesos that it costs him, he handed over his savings, requested a mortgage loan and applied for subsidies from his family compensation fund and from Mi Casa Ya.
Everything was going well, but due to the pandemic the delivery date was pushed back to August 2022, just when the money runs out to continue delivering subsidies from the Government program. The construction company gave it until January 2023, but the conditions to receive this subsidy changed.
“We have been registered for more than two years, with some conditions that were approved and we are in a ‘qualified’ state; now they come to change our characteristics simply because the Government changed”, Édgar told EL TIEMPO.
Since he did not have the Sisbén VAT classification, he requested the survey on February 16. In the Bogotá Planning Secretariat they assure that it took between two and three weeks to do them, but Édgar had been waiting for more than two months.
“This has really become a headache. It is terrible to be every day waiting to know if one is going to be able to fulfill his dream. And if it is definitely not possible, it is losing what one tried with so much effort to achieve, ”she says.
When consulted about this case, the Bogotá Planning Secretariat expedited the process and conducted the survey on Édgar a few days ago. Now the financial entity must wait for the Ministry of Housing to take a month to update the information and thus be able to make the marking.
However, the builder gave him an ultimatum and told him that if he did not receive the subsidy soon, he would have to find the resources elsewhere or else he would have to abandon the purchase and lose his savings.
Édgar’s situation is a reflection of what thousands of families are experiencing in the country. The changes to Mi Casa already have in limbo the dream of having their own home for those who put their faith in this program, but others have had worse luck and lack of resources in 2022 to make allocations led people to take other more expensive options to avoid losing life savings.
(Suggested reading: This is the top 5 of the fresh fruits that Colombia exported the most in 2022)
Mi Casa Ya is a program, through which the Government of Change provides subsidies to buy new housing to the most vulnerable households.
This is the case of Leidy Arango. Two years ago she bought an apartment in Zipaquirá with AR Construcciones for 147 million pesos. To cover this value, she opted for the same alternatives as Édgar.
In August 2022, when the Government announced that the subsidies had ended, it asked the construction company for extensions and although “it has never been very flexible in waiting times”, at the insistence of Leidy modify having a waiting time, but the money from My House never arrived.
By December they had already told him that he had to withdraw from the subsidy or they made the withdrawal clause effective. Leidy says that he resorted to all the banks to lend him, not the 70 million pesos initially, but 90 million pesos because he no longer had Mi Casa Ya.
“I had searched in the banks, that they would lend me more, but no bank, because of my salary and for being the mother head of the family, was going to lend me more; I turned to all the banks ”, she assures.
In the end, as he only needed Bancolombia to lend him 74 million pesos, Leidy gave up a ‘drop by drop’ to have the money he was missing. To pay this loan of 16 million pesos, he agreed to installments of 400,000 pesos per week and every month he has to pay 800,000 pesos in interest until the debt is paid off.
After signing deeds last March, the resources of Mi Casa Ya returned and Leidy can request it; however, AR Construcciones has not authorized the change that is required in the deeds so that they can finally disburse the subsidy and thus pay the ‘drop by drop’.
“The bank has every will to collaborate, but the construction company does not. I was also left without the interest rate benefit because that goes hand in hand with Mi Casa Ya,” she says.EL TIEMPO consulted the Ministry of Housing for its position on these cases and the problems that families are having with the changes to Mi Casa Ya, but after 15 days of waiting there was no response.
The effect on builders
Alexis Munera. WEATHER Archive
The construction sector is also concerned about the changes that Mi Casa Ya underwent, because they generated two major problems, according to Luis Aurelio Díaz, president of Oikos. The first is that the majority of people with the sisbén classification that is now required do not have the possibility of accessing long-term credit with banks.
“There would be no financial closure, they are looking for a very low range, which is fine, but unfortunately it does not go hand in hand with what the financial sector is looking for to grant a loan,” he adds.
The second, he says, is that Sisbén does not have sufficient infrastructure to carry out the surveys required to classify all Colombians who are buying a house.
Another effect that there will be is that the housing market will be significantly reduced and, therefore, the sector will contract for a while.
The president of Oikos states that, today, since there is no clarity about the Mi Casa Ya subsidy, the construction companies are living in homes only with the subsidy granted by the family compensation funds.
The president of Camacol, Guillermo Herrera, points out that purchase withdrawals have had 24 percent, in the first quarter of the year and “clearly this is closely related to the urgency and the need to resolve the disbursement of subsidies so that households they can continue with their purchase process”.
In addition, it states that it must be taken into account that 90 percent of social interest housing builders are small and medium-sized companies, that they have “very complex” financial closings, and that to the extent that the disbursement of the resources of Mi Casa Ya is delayed, the profits of the projects may be affected.
Data from the Superintendence of Companies indicates that in 2022 construction companies opened 458 reorganization and liquidation processes due to high interest rates, the difficulty of accessing subsidies and the high prices of construction inputs from abroad, which have led to the increase in withdrawals.
“It is very important that the Government invigorate the transfer of the Mi Casa Ya subsidies, that the banks re-establish the approvals of mortgage loans and that they unite efforts in order to maintain the sector,” said Angélica Gómez, president of Pien SAS Estructadores Fiduciarios. .
The Government reactivated the program only last April and in that first month authorized the granting of 5,677 subsidies for the purchase of new housing; of these, 2,787 have already been assigned by resolution.
The Ministry of Housing says that it will continue to assign subsidies on a weekly basis until the available resources are exhausted.
(It may interest you: After nine months, Avianca closes the possibility of integrating with Viva)
‘We’ve been at this for three years’
He lives in Tuluá where he bought his home with Mi Casa Ya
Yaneth Quiroga lives in Tuluá, where she bought a house that she began to pay off in 2020 and to do so she also applied to Mi Casa Ya. It went from costing 116.9 million to 125 million pesos because Esdiez Constructora charged 8 million pesos more for postponing delivery by 2023, waiting for the money that they should give him from this subsidy.
“We have been at this for three years. Who is going to want to lose his savings, they are his life savings. The idea of giving up does not cross my mind and that is why I have given the fight until now, ”says Yaneth.
With the changes that the Government made to Mi Casa, they already had to request a reclassification of Sisbén. After two months of waiting, filing a guardianship and three surveys -the first two were rejected- they finally gave him the results. Now the problem is that the Ministry of Housing has not updated the data and its status is “interested, does not comply”, despite being B1 and meeting all the requirements.
The ministry tells him that this update must be done by the bank, but Bancolombia assures that it is a task for the ministry. For now, Yaneth only has to be patient and hope that the Government can comply and not lose her life savings.
‘The transition has been disastrous’
(Keep reading: More Tariffs Proposed by Petro Would Raise Prices to Colombians: AmCham)
Isaac Díaz Orozco lives in Montería and his house cost him 126 million pesos.
Another case that EL TIEMPO learned about is that of Isaac Díaz Orozco, who decided not to wait any longer for the Mi Casa Ya subsidy and is now enjoying his own home in Montería. It was bought from Comercializadora VM SAS for 126 million pesos.
The construction company waited for Isaac to receive the subsidy in 2023, but he had to pay 20 million pesos more because the value of his home would increase with the change of year.
“If things had been clear with Mi Casa Ya, I would have taken this option. The subsidy transition has been disastrous,” she says.
However, it was not. Since he had no additional debt capacity and could not ask the bank for more than the 80 million pesos that he had approved, The solution he found was to transfer his mortgage loan from pesos to UVR to reach 90 million pesos, payable over 20 years.. The 10 million pesos that he lacked he covered with his own resources.
He has paid two installments and the amount of the loan is increasing like foam, now he owes almost 95 million pesos. “I’m scared,” she says. He still has the option of transferring his debt to pesos, but the monthly installments would double and he has no way of assuming that value.
More news
“The so-called ‘pink tide’ will not last”
The job of doing things right | Analysis of Ricardo Avila
Viva Air says goodbye: “The company no longer has the capacity to operate”
