2006 EFSE Development Impact Study – Development impact of building sustainable housing finance systems

The first EFSE Development Impact Study, conducted in the year of 2006, analysed the significant impact of the Fund's housing loans in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo.

The study was conducted by the Institute of Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS) based in Rotterdam, in cooperation with the research institutions Prism in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Riinvest in Kosovo. It shows that:

• EFSE primarily supports smaller home improvement lending: 73% of all loans have been granted for improvement purposes.
• EFSE reaches the target group of low income households: 50% of all final borrowers have a monthly income of less than € 500.
• EFSE funds have enabled investments that would otherwise not have taken place without the access to a housing loan: i.e. more than one third of all housing investments were granted a loan.
• EFSE funds are used to a significant extent for improvements related to energy efficiency: more than 20% of all housing improvement loans were used for improving heating, boilers or windows.
• EFSE funds facilitate an easier access to housing loans: close to 40% of all final borrowers have previously had no contact with a financial institution.
• EFSE and its preceding European Funds have successfully created a housing finance market: at the time of the study EFSE financing was leveraged on average five times with own funds for housing lending by the Fund's partner institutions.