Why more investment is not making housing affordable in Ghana

High costs, limited financing and rising demand keep homes out of reach. Accra, Ghana – Ghana needs more than 1.8 million additional housing units, but attracting investment to build them is only half the challenge. For millions of people, the deeper problem is that the homes reaching the market remain beyond their means. That tension ran through the Africa Real Estate Conference & Expo (ARCE), which brought developers, policymakers, investors and technology entrepreneurs to Accra this week. While participants presented plans to expand construction, improve housing finance and deploy new technologies, their discussions pointed to a stubborn question: how can Ghana make housing commercially viable for developers without pricing out the people who need it?

The stakes are considerable. Some 56.7 percent of Ghana’s population lives in urban areas, yet only about 5 percent of Ghanaians can afford housing without state support. The gap between housing need and effective purchasing power continues to shape the market, limiting the reach of both private developers and conventional mortgage lenders. The government has introduced measures intended to reduce borrowing costs and stimulate construction. The National Homeownership Fund has lowered mortgage rates to 8.4 percent, from 13.5 percent, while a revolving fund of three billion Ghanaian cedis (about $256m) targets public sector workers with repayment periods of 15 to 20 years. Authorities are also