A National Housing Fund can help boost affordable housing in Ghana - Housing entrepreneur proposes

A housing entrepreneur, Nana Odeneho Kyeremateng, has suggested the creation of a National Housing Fund to address the financing challenges of affordable housing programmes in the country.

According to him, this would enable the government to provide seed funding for real estate firms to develop housing for low-income workers.

Speaking in a recent interview on Joy News, Nana Odeneho Kyeremateng added that this would also benefit the banks by offering mortgages to people earning below certain salary levels in the country.

“It will also help the banks when it comes to the provision of mortgages for persons earning below some salary levels in the country,” he said.

He urged all stakeholders to be committed to providing decent housing for workers.

“We need to find a lasting solution to the housing challenge thing; otherwise, we will be going round and round the issue and not addressing anything,” he stated.

He also recommended that the private sector should take the lead in providing affordable housing in Ghana, rather than the government.

He also advised that the government could use the revenue from the rental tax to fund the Ghana Housing Fund.

Nana Odeneho Kyeremateng dismissed the arguments that new taxes might be a better way of funding the proposed Fund.

He disclosed that a potential homeowner might need about $40,000 to $50,000 to buy a two-bedroom house in the non-prime areas.

He defended the commercial banks from the criticisms about Ghana’s mortgage system, saying that the lack of long-term financing in the country was a major obstacle for the financial institutions.

“That is why mortgages are very expensive and do not favour a lot of people with low incomes in the country,” he said.

Currently, housing prices have been rising over the past few years, mainly due to urbanisation, economic growth, and foreign investment.

This trend is expected to continue, but could be influenced by some factors such as construction costs, supply and demand of construction materials, and government policies.

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