Providing Housing Subsidies in Suriname
Download Document| Date Published | 1998 |
| Version | |
| Primary Author | Jack Guttentag |
| Other Authors | Marja Hoek-Smit |
| Theme | Housing Finance Subsidies |
| Country | Suriname |
Abstract
This report outlines a scheme for providing housing subsidies in Surinam. New institutional arrangements that can be avoided or deferred include programs that directly subsidize lenders, mortgage insurance and other risk sharing arrangements between lenders and government, dual index mortgages, and a new wholesale (or “mezzanine”) financing entity. Insofar as concerns housing finance institutional development beyond the immediate requirements of the housing subsidy program, the priority ought to be the reorganization of the existing government-owned insolvent banks. New wrinkles in subsidy design are included so that they will substantially reduce subsidy cost per household. The Surinam lenders to whom these new wrinkles were described responded favorably to them.