The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) has be­gun to dis­trib­ute 170 units at its high­ly-sub­sidised hous­ing es­tates in Ad­ven­ture, Blenheim and Cas­tara in To­ba­go. In its first phase of dis­tri­b­u­tion, 20 fam­i­lies re­ceived keys to their dream homes at Blenheim on Mon­day, fol­lowed by 28 fam­i­lies in Cas­tara on Wednes­day and 35 in Ad­ven­ture yes­ter­day. The high­est mar­ket val­ue of a three-bed­room unit and land at Blenheim is $585,000 and the low­est mar­ket val­ue of a two-bed­room unit is $335,000. How­ev­er, the units are high­ly sub­sidised by the THA re­sult­ing in them be­ing sold for $410,000 and $177,000.

At Cas­tara, the high­est mar­ket val­ue of a three bed­room unit is $535,000 and a two-bed­room unit is $322,000. How­ev­er, the THA sub­sidy has brought down the price to $292,000 and $113,000, re­spec­tive­ly.

The mar­ket val­ue of a three bed­room unit at Ad­ven­ture is $730,000 and a two bed­room is $435,000. The THA sub­sidy has brought this down to $390,000 and $229,000. The cost of the land, too, is be­ing heav­i­ly sub­sidised at all three de­vel­op­ments where the mar­ket val­ue is put at $28 per square foot, but with the sub­sidy it is $5 per square foot.

Mort­gage loans to pur­chase the homes are be­ing pro­vid­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Mort­gage Fi­nance Com­pa­ny Ltd (TTMF). Sec­re­tary of Set­tle­ments and Labour Whit­ney Al­fred, speak­ing at the Cas­tara dis­tri­b­u­tion of keys, said the suc­cess­ful ap­pli­cants could not have had a bet­ter deal and the de­lay in re­ceiv­ing their keys was worth it. He al­so de­liv­ered good news to the con­trac­tors on all three projects who have been owed mon­ey for up to nine months to a year, de­scrib­ing it as an un­ten­able sit­u­a­tion and promised to en­sure they got paid be­fore Christ­mas.