Diaspora purchasing power fails housing patronage test in Ghana
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GREDA data shows about 70 percent of homebuyers in Ghana are indigenous Ghanaians, as diaspora wealth fails to absorb the country's expanding housing supply.
Ghana's growing financial strength among its diaspora has yet to translate into broad-based absorption of the country's expanding housing stock, with industry data indicating that the domestic market remains the dominant source of demand for homes.
The Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA) has reported that about 70 percent of homebuyers in the country are indigenous Ghanaians, suggesting that non-resident and other buyers account for roughly 30 percent of purchases. The figure challenges the perception that Ghanaians living abroad are the principal drivers of residential property sales.
The situation is reflected in Ghana's broader housing paradox. The country continues to face a housing deficit of more than 1.8 million units while a significant proportion of existing dwelling units remain unoccupied. The 2021 Population and Housing Census found that 12.7 percent of dwelling units were vacant nationwide, with the rate rising to 14.6 percent in Greater Accra, the country's biggest property development market.
The contrast is particularly striking given the financial resources available to Ghanaians abroad. Ghana received an estimated US$7.8 billion in remittances in 2025, sharply up from about US$4.6 billion in 2024, representing roughly six percent of GDP. The Bank of Ghana has been encouraging members of the diaspora to channel more of their remittances into productive investments, with Governor Dr. Johnson Asiama recently describing diaspora capital as an important economic resource.
However, the scale of remittance inflows does not translate into equivalent demand for completed homes. While many Ghanaians abroad purchase homes for eventual retirement, family use and rental income, developers still depend heavily on the purchasing power of residents, many of whom lack the income or access to affordable mortgage finance required for purchasing formal housing. Private-sector developers provide more than 60 percent of housing in urban Ghana.
Former GREDA president Patrick Ebo Bonful said in 2024 that mortgage lending in Ghana was equivalent to only about one percent of GDP, and that the real estate sector imports more than 70 percent of its building materials, exposing construction costs to exchange-rate pressures. The result, analysts note, is a market in which wealthy diaspora buyers have the resources to purchase property but their demand is not large enough to absorb the volume of formal housing being supplied, while the much larger domestic market often lacks the purchasing power to convert demand into actual purchases.