Home loans: At the end of February, outstanding amounts amounted to MAD 243.8 billion

Casa Anfa neighborhood in Casablanca. Credit: Mustapha Razi / Le Desk

According to the Department of Financial Studies and Forecasts (DEPF), outstanding housing loans amounted to 243.8 billion dirhams (billion dirhams) at the end of February 2024, an increase of 1.6% year on year.

Despite the 1.1% decline in outstanding real estate development loans, outstanding real estate loans amounted to MAD 302.1 billion at the end of February 2024, an increase of 0.6%, according to the DEPF, under the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

In addition, cement sales, the main barometer of activity in the construction sector, fell slightly (-0.4%) at the end of the first quarter of 2024.

This development is explained on the one hand by the increase of 7.5% recorded during the first two months of this quarter and on the other hand by the decrease of 14% during the month of March 2024, when construction sites were halted due to, in particular due to the severe rainfall recorded this month, the DEPF reports.

This decline in March affected all delivery segments, with the exception of infrastructure, where deliveries increased by 10.7%.

Despite this poor performance in March, the infrastructure, ready-mixed concrete and precast segments ended the first quarter of 2024 with performances of +41%, +10.3% and +1.1% respectively.

The added value of the construction sector has grown again for the second quarter in a row, after consecutive declines in added value since the first quarter of 2022.

Inflation rose by 0.5% in the third quarter of 2023 and by 2.4% in the fourth quarter of 2023. These positive developments made it possible to mitigate the decline in the added value of this sector on average at the end of 2023 (-0.8% after a decline of 3.5% a year earlier).

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