Why more investment is not making Ghana's housing affordable
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Ghana needs more than 1.8 million extra homes and has cut mortgage rates and set up a housing fund, but bankers, developers and policymakers at a conference in Accra say expensive land, infrastructure and construction finance still keep prices beyond most households.
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 even a growing pipeline of homes is priced beyond what they earn, according to a report from the Africa Real Estate Conference & Expo (ARCE) in Accra.
Some 56.7 per cent of Ghana's population lives in urban areas, yet only about 5 per cent of Ghanaians can afford housing without state support. About 90 per cent of the country's housing is built through personal savings and incremental construction, and mortgage penetration stands at just 0.3 per cent of gross domestic product.
The government has lowered mortgage rates under the National Homeownership Fund to 8.4 per cent from 13.5 per cent, and set up a revolving fund of three billion Ghanaian cedis (about $256m) for public sector workers with repayment periods of 15 to 20 years. It is also seeking to revive the stalled Saglemi Housing Project, targeting the first 700 units for March 2027, and has announced a 200-acre Green City Project at Dedesua. President John Dramani Mahama has allocated one billion cedis (about $85m) in the 2027 budget for the National Housing Fund and pressed banks to find alternative ways of assessing informal-sector borrowers who lack payslips.
Samuel Amegayibor, executive director of the Ghana Real Estate Developers Association, told Al Jazeera that finance and secure land remain the two biggest obstacles for developers. Borrowing costs have fallen from around 30 per cent to between 9 and 15 per cent depending on the bank, but land tenure complications and the cost of extending electricity, water and access roads add to the price of every unit. He argued that expanding local production of imported building inputs could lower costs.
Bako Ambianda, chief executive of Backbone Capital Ventures, said the constraint is not demand but the mismatch between the cost of delivering homes, the financing available to build them and the payment patterns of households. "A beautifully designed app will not make an overpriced plot affordable, provide a road or drainage system, lower the cost of capital by itself, or resolve an unclear title," he said, calling for serviced land to be released through transparent processes and for lending models that fit informal incomes.
Tenants face a separate barrier before rent even starts: although the 1963 Rent Act limits advance rent to six months, landlords routinely demand one to two years up front. Enforcement measures introduced in April 2026 carry penalties of up to 3,000 cedis (about $257) or six months' imprisonment, and the FirstKey app is intended to identify non-compliant landlords. About 70 per cent of Ghanaians fall within the low- and middle-income bracket, while much new development still targets higher earners.
At ARCE, 30 property-technology startups presented tools intended to cut operating costs, from smart-home systems to reflective roof coatings, alongside developers experimenting with alternative materials. The report concluded that technology and cheaper materials can improve efficiency, but cannot on their own resolve insecure titles, inadequate infrastructure or the cost of development finance.