Affordable Housing Provision in Ghana: Experiences and the Way-forward

Housing has been considered as one of the basic needs of households. However, statistics indicate that households in Ghana are experiencing acute housing problems. The study sought to investigate the activities of four main stakeholders of households, mortgage institutions, estate developers and Government land sector agencies, in the housing industry to present sustainable recommendations to mitigate the problems. The principle of Demand and Supply, housing affordability theories and literature on housing in Ghana formed the basis of the literature review. The case study methodology was adopted, and the New Juaben Municipality of Ghana was used as the study area. Data from face-to-face interviews, focus group discussions and documents (secondary data) were analyzed to identify the findings of the study. It was realized that the prices of houses were high, households’ incomes were low, financial institutions experienced high interest and foreign exchange rate risks. Furthermore, there were unavailability and high cost of land and building materials whilst land title registration services were partially automated. It was therefore recommended that houses should be supplied with varying prices, employers should subsidize prices of houses for households, foreign exchange and policy rates should be stabilized. Furthermore, developers should have land banks and use locally produced quality building materials and the government fully automate the land registration services.