Dr.Ester Kali
The answer is simpler than most people think: affordability.
A household doesn’t only need a house. It also needs transport, furniture, school fees, medical aid, insurance, food, and a dozen other things that don’t pause just because you took out a bond.
If every major purchase had to be settled in 5 years, the monthly repayments would crush most budgets before the month is halfway through.
Longer home loan terms weren’t designed to trap people in debt.
They were designed to make homeownership possible by reducing the monthly instalment enough for families to breathe and meet their other obligations at the same time.
But here’s the harder truth: the repayment period is not the real problem. House prices have outpaced incomes for years.
Many young people are priced out of the property market long before they ever sit across from a banker. The barrier isn’t the loan term; it’s the price of entry.
The conversation we should be having is about supply, land costs, infrastructure, and income growth.
How do we bring the price of a starter home within reach of a first-time buyer on a median salary? That is the real question.
A loan term doesn’t determine affordability on its own. Affordability lives at the intersection of income, house price, interest rate, and what a family can realistically repay month after month without sacrificing everything else.
