Trellis plans to deploy $100m housing loans over next 5 years

KARACHI: Trellis Housing Finance Limited (Trellis), an SECP-licensed housing finance company based in Karachi, has set a target to deploy at least $100 million housing loans over the next 5 years across the country to enable all Pakistanis to realize their dream of home ownership.

According to the details, the Trellis has raised an investment round led by local and international investors including Fatima Gobi Ventures, Insitor Partners, Zayn Capital, TPL Properties & Taarah Ventures along with angel investors. With this funding, Trellis sets the target to deploy at least $100m housing loans over the next 5 years across the country, to enable all Pakistanis to realize their dream of home ownership.

As urbanization in Pakistan rapidly rises, with the population in towns and cities expected to double in the next decade, the home financing sector is extremely undersupplied with credit. According to the World Bank, there is a shortfall of 10 million homes and less than 100,000 housing loans outstanding in a country of 220 million people.

Founded in 2020, Trellis set out to give every Pakistani access to affordable housing by establishing a world-class housing finance institution. To date, Trellis has processed over PKR 1 billion (US$ 5.77 million) worth of housing finance inquiries, with numbers growing exponentially daily.

In addition to its own home finance offerings, Trellis has also partnered with some of Pakistan’s leading financing institutions, such as Habib Metro Bank, JS Bank and U Microfinance Bank. By adopting Trellis’ proprietary, fully-digital mortgage origination platform, these partners can accelerate their housing finance deployments to get more families into homes faster.

Jamshed H Meherhomji, Co-founder and CEO of Trellis, said: “Our job is to navigate through the complexities of the real estate market and give clients what they deserve. In addition to our financial products, we are building the Trellis Network, a rapidly growing ecosystem of real-estate, finance, and associated industry partners connecting the dots across the supply chain to further optimize and streamline the home buying experience for everyone.” Existing home financing solutions in the market typically require two to four months to complete due to manual, paper-based processing. Harnessing technology, Trellis is saving aspiring homeowners time and money. With this platform, Trellis and its partners are offering the ‘Mera Pakistan Mera Ghar’ product, which is a government-subsidized financing scheme. Additionally, Trellis offers its own Shariah Compliant ‘GharHo’ product, which is a more comprehensive financing solution for purchasing, constructing or renovating homes. There is also an industry-first suite of financing services for builders and developers; aligning buyers, builders and financial institutions, through the financing of cost-effective high rise developments.

Thomas Tsao, General Partner of Fatima Gobi Ventures, said: “FGV’s strong commitment to ESG investing aligns with Trellis, which leverages technology to improve real estate access to underserved communities and drive social impact. We are excited to join Jamshed and his team on their mission to make home ownership universally attainable in Pakistan.”

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021