Minister of Housing, Utilities, and Urban Communities Assem El Gazzar announced a two-month extension period for applicants who applied for the residential units previously provided in a number of new cities to complete or update the required data, Invest-Gate reports.

The units come under the Central Bank of Egypt’s (CBE) recent mortgage finance initiative and were offered by the ministry in collaboration with the New Urban Communities Authority (NUCA).

The time limit started on February 12 and will last until April 12, the minister said in a recent official statement.

CEO of  Social Housing and Mortgage Finance Fund (SHMFF) Mai Abdel Hamid noted, “In the event of incompletion of documents within the set time-limit, the reservation will then be considered null.”

Earlier this month, the CBE has released a regulation to raise mortgages’ share of commercial banks’ lending portfolios up to 10%, a rise from the previous 5%. The move comes within the framework of the EGP 50 bn finance initiative launched by the CBE last December to boost the real estate market by giving middle-income homebuyers access to subsidized mortgages.