Bolsonaro announces measures to unlock popular housing with an eye on Brazil’s 2022 election

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A little over a year before the elections, President Jair Bolsonaro, participated in a ceremony at the Palácio do Planalto, with the announcement of six measures that try to boost the Green and Yellow House program.

The substitute for Minha Casa, Minha Vida, is still based on contracts intended for low-income families.

Besides the actions already announced this week, such as increasing the ceiling of the value of the properties and reducing interest rates, the government will stimulate states and municipalities to give counterparts to the projects and resume the modality of “public offer”, aimed at small municipalities.

Coordinated by the Ministry of Regional Development (MDR), the Yellow Green House wants to be used as a brand for Bolsonaro’s re-election campaign. But the pace of contracting and execution of works is below the government’s own expectations. Besides changing rules and offering better access conditions, the plan announced on Wednesday (15) includes a gradual expansion of the budget in 2022 (10%), 2023 (12%), and 2024 (15%) for financing programs that are part of the popular housing area.

The partnership with states and municipalities will try to break down one of the barriers to contracting: the beneficiary having to make the down payment for the property. To this end, the government created the “Partnerships” financing modality, in which states and municipalities must guarantee a minimum counterpart of 20% of the residential value – which can include the land.

On another front, the “Public Offering” program, closed in 2018, will be rescued, with about 45,000 undelivered units. The MDR has negotiated with the companies new deadlines for resuming construction and delivery of units to families.

The Ministry estimates that there are 27,000 housing units suitable for completion, of which 3,000 are already being analyzed to be delivered immediately to the beneficiaries. All of them are in municipalities with fewer than 50 thousand inhabitants.

Earlier this week, after approval by the Board of Trustees of the Workers Service Guarantee Fund (FGTS), the government had already announced other actions, which were praised in today’s event. These include raising the ceiling on the value of real estate properties in low-income housing, which had not been adjusted for about three years.

The new ceiling varies according to the region and population size. In municipalities with 50,000 to 100,000 inhabitants, the increase in the limit will be 15%. Between 20,000 and 50,000 inhabitants, 10%. In municipalities with a population of fewer than 20 thousand inhabitants, there was no change. The limits, now, vary from R$ 135,000 to R$ 264,000.

According to the MDR, the government also unified the interest rate for families with incomes under R$2,000, whose housing needs correspond to 80% of the country’s deficit. It increased the FGTS subsidy for families that fit this income group.

The interest rates, in this case, are 4.25% per year in the North and Northeast regions (4.75% per year for borrowers who are not FGTS contributors) and 4.50% per year in the South, Southeast, and Central West regions (5.00% per year for borrowers who are not FGTS contributors).

There was also a reduction in the interest rate for families with income between R$4,000 and R$7,000 until the end of next year, by 0.5 percentage points, from 8.16% to 7.66% per year.

For workers who hold an account linked to the FGTS for three years or more, the reduction will be greater, with annual interest rates equivalent to 7.16%.

Besides stimulating housing construction and financing, the Green and Yellow House is focused on land regularization and has programs for residential renovation.