Apna Ghar Housing Loan Paperwork Cut From 25 Documents to Five

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ordered banks to cut the documents required for an Apna Ghar housing loan application from 25 to five and to process every application within 15 working days, after a review found that banks had disbursed only a sixth of the loan value they had already approved under the scheme.

Sharif chaired the review on October 15, which covered housing, agricultural and small-business lending together. The housing finance scheme, launched to help low- and middle-income households buy or build a home, had approved 75,198 loans worth Rs448 billion by that date, but only Rs76 billion of that had reached borrowers, with roughly 14,000 people actually receiving funds.

Why the gap between approval and disbursement

A loan can sit in "approved" status for months while a borrower works through paperwork banks require before releasing funds: proof of clear property title, income verification, collateral documentation and the bank's own internal compliance checks. The government's own account of the review does not break down which of those steps caused the slowdown, but the directive it issued addresses the two most commonly cited bottlenecks directly — the volume of documents a borrower must assemble, and the absence of any firm deadline by which a bank must act once a file is complete.

What changes for applicants

Under the new rules, applicants need five documents instead of 25, and banks must issue a decision within 15 working days of a complete application. Sharif also directed provincial governments to set up district-level facilitation desks to help applicants obtain clear property-ownership documents, one of the recurring reasons housing-finance applications stall before they ever reach a bank's credit committee. The State Bank of Pakistan and relevant ministries were told to consult industry stakeholders and submit final proposals on housing, agriculture and SME lending by the end of October.

The target still ahead of the scheme

The government has set a target of Rs700 billion in housing finance this year, covering 125,000 residential units. Against that goal, the Rs76 billion disbursed so far represents a small fraction of both the funding target and the unit count, even though the approved-loan figure of Rs448 billion suggests demand for the scheme is not the constraint. Pakistan's own property registration and title systems have long been cited by lenders as a structural drag on mortgage lending, a friction point that echoes complaints foreign investors have separately raised with the IMF about regulatory and documentation burdens elsewhere in the economy.

Housing finance also sits downstream of the policy rate banks set mortgage pricing against; the State Bank has held its benchmark rate steady through its recent meetings, which keeps the cost of an Apna Ghar loan more predictable than it would be if rates were moving. Overseas Pakistanis, who often fund a home purchase or construction back home out of money sent to family, are a related audience for the scheme; remittance inflows hit a record in the first quarter of this fiscal year, the same money that frequently ends up financing property rather than an Apna Ghar loan itself.

A broader lending push, not just housing

The same review set parallel targets for agricultural and small-business credit. Agricultural lending stood at Rs1,352 billion against a target of Rs1,500 billion by June 2027, with the government aiming to raise beneficiary farmers to 4.5 million. SME lending had reached Rs1,137 billion for more than 352,000 businesses, against the same mid-2027 target of Rs1,500 billion and a goal of extending support to 575,000 business owners. A separate committee on developer financing has been asked to report back, though no date has been set.

What to watch

The State Bank and the ministries involved are due to submit their final lending proposals by the end of October. Whether the document cut and the 15-day processing rule actually close the gap between approved and disbursed Apna Ghar loans will show up in the next disbursement figures the government publishes, rather than in the announcement itself.

Build Better Pakistan's Economy Desk is tracking the Apna Ghar scheme's rollout and will report on disbursement figures as they are released.