There follows a closer investigation of the restrictive effects of these factors.
The insistence on an income which is formal and also regular, that is, relatively
secure in the fairly long term, is, from the lending institution’s point of view, just
as rational as the insistence on an income high enough to ensure that the load
imposed by amortisation and interest payments will not be too heavy. But experience
shows that in this way the great majority of the population of the developing
countries are excluded from receiving loans. Most Latin American housing
finance institutions insist on a minimum annual income of US$4,000, which
means that e.g. in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 88% of families fail to fulfil this precondition.
6 In Colombia, where the situation was apparently somewhat more
favourable, the minimum requirement in 1973 was a family income of $60 a
month, thus excluding 65% of the population. ’ In the Philippines the limit was an
annual income of $2,300, which only 7% of households received.’ The range of
potential borrowers is reduced still further by the additional requirement that the
income must be formal and regular. Seasonal earnings dependent on the harvest
are just as much affected by this as informal receipts from street trading, hot-food
stalls, tinkering, casual labour and so on, the very activities, in fact, which are
typical of the marginal population. Takings of this sort, pooled within the family
group, are often sufficient in extent to finance a modest dwelling but their
informal nature bars the way to a loan.