Lebanon Moves to Revive Public Housing Loans for the First Time Since 2019
Lebanon is preparing to revive housing loans through the Public Corporation for Housing for the first time since the 2019 financial collapse. Officials are seeking around $100 million to support roughly 1,400 families, with a proposed 3.5% interest rate and a minimum 20% down payment.
Lebanon is preparing to restart housing loans through the Public Corporation for Housing, potentially restoring one of the main paths to homeownership for lower- and middle-income families for the first time since the financial collapse began in 2019. The corporation stopped accepting new applications after the banking crisis effectively froze subsidized lending.
The proposed revival is being built into Lebanon’s 2027 state budget. Public Corporation for Housing director Rony Lahoud and Social Affairs Minister Haneen Sayed have requested around $100 million to finance a new round of loans, which could support roughly 1,400 Lebanese families. Lahoud said the proposed interest rate is around 3.5%, while borrowers would likely need to provide at least 20% of the property value upfront.
The final terms have not yet been approved, and the funding amount could still change before the budget is adopted. But preparations for the lending program have already begun, with officials indicating that eligibility conditions may broadly resemble those used before the crisis.
The significance extends beyond homebuyers. Lebanon’s pre-2019 housing-loan system supported a wide network of sectors, including construction, real estate, engineering, furniture and household spending. Lahoud has argued that the shutdown of housing credit accelerated the wider economic collapse because of how closely the sector is connected to the rest of the economy.
It is important to distinguish this program from Banque de l’Habitat, which has already resumed some lending using financing from Arab development funds. The new proposal concerns the state-run Public Corporation for Housing and would represent the return of its own subsidized lending program after a seven-year freeze.
If approved, the move would mark another small but meaningful sign of normalization in Lebanon’s financial system: after years in which mortgages effectively disappeared for most households, state-backed housing finance could once again become available.
