According to the latest Camacol report, between January and May of this year, 64,129 new homes were no longer sold in Colombia. This represents not only a 61% drop in sales compared to the previous year, but also the sector as a whole stopped receiving 13 billions of pesos in investment.
The outlook is still discouraging because the balance in the second half of 2023 remains negative. Just look at the month of August, where the variation in sales reached -52%. It is worrying that the different types of housing present the same trend. For example, in the VIS segment there was a negative impact of 56% while in the NON-VIS modality a decrease of 40% was recorded.
What is recorded on the issue of housing subsidies is also alarming, where we find that of the 75,000 that have been issued by the national government, only 52,000 have interest coverage. As a result of this, it is necessary to question: What then happens to the remaining 23,000? Where was the planning principle of the National Government? Will these homes be assigned? And if yes, under what figure of interest coverage?
Delving into figures from Camacol’s annual report, the vast majority of the balance in construction is dramatic, just seeing that the civil works production indicator fell 17.9% compared to the immediately previous year and that 4 of the 5 subsectors of construction showed decreases. It is necessary to take effective measures in this regard, since by 2024 it is planned to build 118,000 homes, when in 2021 we were above 230,000 in sales alone.
Finally, let’s look at one last piece of information that goes beyond housing, this has to do with cement shipments, against which a new decline of 6.5% was recorded in July. At the same time, concrete production registered a variation of -3% compared to the previous year.
The above explains why the Colombian economy notably slowed its annual growth to 0.3% in the second quarter of 2023, according to Dane, very serious for the future of a country where not only does the economy seem to be going backwards, construction, but democratic stability.
Thank God, the Catholic Church, the international managers and the Public Force for the release of “Mane” Díaz, the father of “Lucho”. It is time to free everyone now!
