Nairobi, Feb. 16 -- Workers with a monthly income of up to Sh200,000 can now tap the Kenya Mortgage Refinance Company (KMRC) loans after the State-backed lender increased the income limit for borrowers.

KMRC chief executive officer Johnstone Oltetia on Thursday said the income limit was raised by Sh50,000 in December 2023, amid the skyrocketing cost of living that has eaten into the spending power of prospective homeowners.

The move is a win for the middle class at a time when mortgages from commercial banks are getting costlier in the wake of upward reviews of the benchmark lending rate by the Central Bank of Kenya.

A combination of rising inflation and increased taxation continues to batter workers' payslips, in turn squeezing their ...