The Management of the Home Finance Company (HFC) is exploring options to improve demand for houses by investing in expandable housing units for the average income earner in the local and non-resident markets.

Addressing the seventh annual general meeting of Home Finance Company in Accra on Thursday, Kwaku Botwe, Operations Manager, recounted improvement in the national economy, which he said would help in the growth of the company's future investment.

He said as the economy stabilized and all legal difficulties on on-going projects were dealt with, the HFC Real Estates Investment Trust (HFC-REIT) would become more attractive to institutional investors for the tax-exempt it provided.

He said due to this expectation, the Company was looking forward to an increased demand for new homes. Giving the financial performance of the Company for the year 2002, Botwe said the fund's value increased from ?18.6bn to ?22.7bn while the net income was 859.8 million cedis as against ?704m in 2001.

The Company, however, gave a total dividend of ?249.7m to its investors as compared to ?465.6m in 2001. The Company's other investment, the HFC-Unit Trust also increased in value from ?30.6bn at the beginning of the year to ?50.5bn at the close of 2002.

This followed an increase in the number of unit holders from 4,950 in 2001 to 5,759 in the year under review. Botwe explained that, the 12-month yield of 20 per cent was lower than that of 2001, which was due to the impact of a legal dispute over the Company's portion of land over which ownership was battled in court for four years.

He said the dispute had now been settled in favour of HFC and that would provide the needed impetus for the enhanced performance of the Fund.

He said the Company currently held seven residential units in Accra and Kumasi but due to the low yields on rental properties, the units were to be sold out to create the needed liquidity for on-going projects and related new businesses to provide higher returns.

"Our joint venture project at Batsona is near completion. We have completed the provision of all infrastructural services on the land. "The sales of service plots have commenced in earnest whilst 15 two-bedroom expandable houses have been completed", he said.

He, therefore, urged its shareholder to continue to support the Company to make a greater impact on the investment market to be able to provide the needed returns for them.

Over 100 Unit holders of the HFC, and the Management and Board Members of the Company attended the AGM and voted for the acceptance of the annual report, audited statement of income and expenditure and the distribution statement of HFC Unit Trust for the financial year ended 31 December 2002.