About 40% of this population belongs to the middle and lower-middle class segments who dispose of monthly incomes ranging between 6000 and 12,000 rupees; in other words they can only afford to buy housing units costing between 200,000 and 500,000 rupees.
According to the world bank, loans to buy property are difficult to obtain and are usually given to the upper income groups, leaving other segments with no mean of buying property. As a result most are forced to acquire land through illegal means and hence the mushrooming of Katchi Abdai's in Pakistan's major cities. Karachi alone has 600 to 800 illegal settlements sheltering about 7.6 million people our of the city's total population of 18 million people.
Sindh has 1,300 Katchi Abadi's covering 24,300acres of government-owned land and 1,700 acres of private land.
A possible solution lies in lowering the mark up rates offered by banks on long term loans thereby making the monthly repayment installments for mortgaged finance equivalent to the monthly rents of houses and apartments paid by tenants. In this way millions of people living in rented premises could at least have the opportunity to buy their own house or apartment, without having to pay exorbitant sums of money at one go.
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