ZB sets aside $10m for land purchase

 Enacy Mapakame Property Reporter
FINANCIAL services group, ZB Financial Holdings has set aside $10 million for the purchase of land banks across the country that will be serviced for the resi­dential market.

Group chief executive Ron Mutandagayi said this was part of the group’s focus areas in the next two years as well as part of initia­tives towards availing affordable residential solutions to the market. The land banks have been iden­tified in Zvimba, Zvishanvane, Shurugwi and Bulawayo.

“Acquisition of land banks remain a focus area, the group believes this area to be a source of strategic growth in the future. We are working with a num­ber of local councils, so as soon as we are able to seal the deals, we then apply the $10 million money the land banks,” he said in an interview on the sidelines of the group’s financial results for the year ending December 31, 2017.

Mr Mutandagayi said the group would develop the land before putting it on the market as either vacant stands or completed struc­tures, depending on home seek­ers’ preferences and affordability.

“We will service the land and allow people to either purchase as land or if they prefer to purchase a fully built house,” he said.

Meanwhile, ZB is also working on residential projects across the country. Mr Mutandagayi said the group was in the process of final­ising the acquisition of 678 stands in Kadoma while its Springvale housing project in Ruwa is now sold out.

The group has also acquired 708 residential stands in Plumtree town where development is expected this year before the stands are put on the market.

The Plumtree projects will cater for all markets, from low cost to high end market.

“Plumtree is a combination of all markets,” said Mr Mutandagayi. Due to price instability that started late last year, selling of the group’s residential stands in Beitbridge slowed down.

ZB has 150 stands on the market in the border town targeting civil servants and other low income earners. Mr Mutandagayi said Beitbridge was a strategic loca­tion as it has the country’s busiest border post.

“Selling of 150 stands in Bei­bridge was tactically slowed in order to allow prices to stabilise. The group continues to monitor developments,” he said.