Projects

Scoping Rwanda’s Affordable Housing Sector and its Financing

Rwanda has a developing housing and housing finance sector – but there are constraints.  While Rwanda’s mortgage to GDP ratio (3,35 percent) is relatively high …

Exploring Technology in Residential Property Markets

Blockchain has been touted by a multitude of advocates for its potential to alleviate challenges in the existing land registration process. Challenges include the additional transaction costs arising from the use of intermediaries in property transactions.

Data Agenda for Housing in Africa

We believe market intelligence & data is fundamental market infrastructure for the housing finance sector. A key constraint undermining private sector participation and good policy engagement in affordable housing finance is the availability of data and market intelligence to facilitate risk-taking and decision-making.

Citymark: Analysis of residential property markets in South Africa’s eight metros

With support from the Cities Support Programme of National Treasury, the Citymark project undertakes analysis of South Africa's residential property markets, with a particular focus on the lower end of the market.

Urban land markets

Access to, and the acquisition of, land is a critical first step in the housing value chain. However a number of factors can impact upon access to well-located, serviced land, thus impacting as well on the availability of affordable housing.

Transaction Support Centre

A fundamental principle of the housing asset is the ability to use it for trade – homeowners buy and sell property, investing their income and realizing equity while they address their changing housing needs over time.  In this way, housing is much more than simply shelter.

CAHF Working Paper Series: Fundamental concepts in housing finance

As African housing markets deepen, its interaction with macro-economic and regulatory frameworks, its role and reliance on secondary markets as well as its impact on broader economic performance becomes increasingly important to understand.

Housing Investment Chronicles

All across Africa, the vast majority of citizens cannot afford to purchase a home using formal housing finance instruments. The average annual income required to purchase the cheapest newly built house in Mozambique is US$149 909.

African Housing Investment Landscapes

Growing financial sector experience and increasingly sophisticated financial instruments are driving investor interest in African real estate.  This includes new market opportunities related to a rising urban middle class, an increasingly localized construction material industry and innovations in housing finance such the emergence of Real Estate Investment Trusts and mortgage liquidity facilities across Africa.

Housing and the Economy

CAHF has recently completed a series of studies that give us clearer answers to these two questions, and many others as well. The studies are ground-breaking in their approaches, venturing into territories where real information is scarce, and data to build that information severely lacking.

African Union for Housing Finance (AUHF)

The African Union for Housing Finance (AUHF) was established as a member-based body of housing lenders in 1984. Today, the AUHF comprises of 61 members from 17 countries across the continent. Members include commercial and mortgage banks, building societies, microfinance banks/institutions, housing development corporations, and other institutions involved in the mobilisation of funds for shelter and housing.

Residential Real Estate Investment Trusts in Africa

This study outlines the general context of REITs and specifically residential REITs globally and more specifically in Africa, through case studies of REITs in Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Morocco. An analysis of the study provides a clear indication of what the enabling factors are for the successful implementation of a residential REIT in the African context.