Here I'll be sharing a variety of ways that you can creatively finance your real estate investments in El Gouna, and further afield here in Egypt too!
Depending on your financial situation and goals, you may be quite curious as to the available financing options as we don't have traditional mortgages here in Egypt, so let's look at (5) options...
Choosing to buy a new build property "off-plan" provides you with a variety of easy financing options, depending on the developer and what they're offering.
Generally speaking, you can expect to pay anywhere from 0% - 15% downpayment, with interest free instalments over the course of 5 to 12 years - now this is in Egypt overall. However in El Gouna, with Orascom, we offer new build sales with a 15% downpayment, and 5 year instalment term, usually with delivery after 2 years (subject to the specific development in town, of course).
Assuming you have existing capital, rather than use it to pay for real estate outright, you can invest the funds into fixed rate (or variable rate) - I suggest fixed rate CD's as you know exactly what yield you're receiving, monthly, over a maximum 3 year term.
So let's suggest that you've 10m EGP, and you want to buy a resale property that's 9m EGP, assuming you're investing with a bank that will loan you 90% of what you've invested into a fixed rate CD, say at 18% yield, and they're charding you an interest rate of 11%, then you can purchase the property outright from the secured loan, and still net 7% annually from 9m of the 10m, and 18% from the 10th million in the CD.
Alternatively, let's say you have capital, and you'd like to buy a new build, off-plan property, pay the instalments, and essentially retain the bulk of your capital, even after paying off the property completely, which feels almost like getting a new property for free... So in this case, let's say you want to buy a property that's $600k USD (and you have around $700k USD in total) you'd pay the 15% downpayment of $90k USD, then put $610k USD in the most favourable, trusted bank, convert to EGP, investing it into a fixed 18% yield CD, and essentially pay your quarterly instalments simply with the interest yield you're receving from the CD.
The great detail here, and super important, is that you're generating a fixed sum of EGP in the interest yield, and the instalments are "dollar capped" to a maxium amount of EGP per dollar in your real estate purchase with Orascom, to ensure you are protected from liability should there be a currency devaluation beyond a certain threshold - which allows you to very confidently choose this financing route, where at the end, you will likely retain most, if not all, of your initial CD investment sum, keeping in mind that we can only be certain of a 3 year term at a time, with CD's and their fixed yields.
To my understanding, this is generally only done with real estate that's registered with the appropriate government bodies within the Egyptian government, which isn't usually an option in a destination like El Gouna, as the real estate is primarily registered internally with Orascom. However, if you know the right people and can produce the necessary paperwork, it seems that anything can be possible in the great nation of Egypt!
Generally speaking, an unsecured loan against wages can't exceed resulting monthly instalments amounting to 50% of these wages. Depending on the institution providing the loan, the term may be up to 15 years, however it's important to note that longer term loans have higher interest, for example 11% at 3 years and 14% at 15 years, just to offer a relative idea.
As you won't receive the title until you've paid the property balance in full, and considering the Egyptian legal system, this (may) not be a great option to choose.
* Please note: Each bank will have different policies, interest rates will change, the amount of money you have to potentially invest & who you know, may individually and as a whole, greatly influence your available investment options.