Africa's housing market splits between a prime boom and a mortgage drought

Africa's urban population is forecast to double from around 700 million in 2020 to 1.4 billion by 2050, and much of the infrastructure those residents will need has yet to be built. Capital is already moving quickly into prime housing in a handful of cities, but the same analysis finds that the financing structures behind those schemes remain largely closed to the middle- and lower-income households that make up most of the demand.

Cape Town shows how constrained prime supply behaves. Savills said prime residential values rose 4.7% in the first half of 2026, the second-strongest performance in its 30-city global index after Tokyo, and it expects a further 4% to 5.9% in the second half. Lightstone found that buyers born abroad accounted for about 6% of residential transactions by individuals between 2016 and 2025, rising to 15% for homes worth ZAR4 million to ZAR10 million, 26% between ZAR10 million and ZAR20 million, and 39% above ZAR20 million.

Lagos presents the opposite picture, with a construction boom rather than scarcity. Estate Intel says more than 1,200 luxury residential units were completed in the city between 2000 and 2019, followed by another 1,000 in the six years to 2025, with more than 655 projected for completion in 2026 and over 2,000 in the pipeline. Of roughly 2,500 residential units planned at Eko Atlantic, 91.5% are classified as luxury and 8.5% as ultra-luxury. Louisville, a $150 million mixed-use scheme owned by the TotalEnergies Staff Housing Cooperative rather than the listed group, has 157 premium apartments in its first phase backed by a $40 million facility from First City Monument Bank.

Accra and Nairobi are following similar routes. Estate Intel counts more than 3,100 luxury residential units under development in Accra, concentrated in Cantonments, Airport Residential and East Legon, with luxury development up about 25% over five years and prime stock commonly priced in US dollars. In Nairobi, the 2025 launch of Jabali Towers at Tatu City, a 2,023-hectare mixed-use development, included more than 350 apartments alongside offices, a hotel and retail space, though rapid delivery of high-end apartments in Westlands has raised questions about absorption.

The gap sits below that market. UN-Habitat data cited in the analysis put 49.4% of sub-Saharan urban residents in slums or informal settlements in 2024, with a continental housing deficit above 60 million units and a financing gap estimated at more than $1.4 trillion through 2030. South Africa has the deepest mortgage market on the continent but a backlog of about 2.6 million units, and its First Home Finance programme targets households earning ZAR3,501 to ZAR22,000 a month who earn too much for full subsidy but often too little for a bank loan. Nigeria's Ministry of Finance Incorporated Real Estate Investment Fund had deployed NGN140 billion through 21 financial institutions for 2,018 mortgages across 27 states by August 2026, at a fixed 9.75% for up to 20 years. Kenya's Central Bank recorded 30,762 outstanding residential mortgages at the end of 2025, up only 746 during the year, worth KES307.2 billion, with the average rate falling to 13.5% from 15.2%.