Ghana startup StashUp builds rent-financing product to tackle advance rent crisis

A Ghanaian startup is developing a product aimed at easing the advance-rent burden on renters, as landlords in Accra and other urban centres routinely demand one to two years' rent upfront despite a 1963 law capping advances at six months.

StashUp, a personal finance app built by Accra-based Zongo Technologies, is developing StashUp Rent, which is designed to pay a tenant's full advance directly to the landlord on their behalf, with the tenant then repaying StashUp in monthly instalments.

StashUp founder Gimbala Sankare said the problem was not affordability of monthly rent but the inability to pay it all at once. “The rent advance problem is not about people not being able to afford rent,” he said. “It is about people not being able to afford rent all at once. Those are completely different problems and they need completely different solutions.”

The product is not yet live, but a waitlist opened earlier this year has attracted significant sign-ups from Ghanaians across Accra, Kumasi and other urban centres where the advance-rent burden is most acute.

Under the model, a tenant who has found a property and agreed terms with a landlord applies through StashUp for rent support; following an eligibility check, StashUp pays the landlord the full advance amount, and the tenant repays in instalments. Similar rent-financing products exist in the United Kingdom and parts of the United States.

Critics argue such products treat the symptom rather than the cause, pointing to the unenforced Rent Act and Ghana's estimated housing deficit. Sankare acknowledged this, saying the company was not solving the housing crisis but the specific problem of a renter who has found a home but cannot access it because of an upfront sum they do not yet have.