Projects

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.

Case Studies into Innovation

There is a growing track record of novel solutions and initiatives, pioneered by policy makers, financiers, developers and households themselves, suggesting that there are new opportunities for making the housing finance sector work for the poor in Africa.

Housing Finance Information Network (HOFINET)

The Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa (CAHF) works with the Housing Finance Information Network (HOFINET) to consolidate, and make widely available, African housing finance information and knowledge.

Rental Housing in Africa

While much policy and research focus in housing concerns home ownership, urban Africa demonstrates high levels of residential rental activity, in most cases, despite limiting policy environments. Yet, there are still severe shortages in most African cities, particularly at the lower end of the market.

Housing Investment Data

Data across most of Africa is scarce, however, especially so for the housing and housing finance sectors. Specific data gaps include a lack of data on affordability, building code and building materials norms, competitive market horizon, infrastructure norms and constraints, land ownership and titling norms, profitability of investments in affordable housing, and on the market itself.

Housing Microfinance

With access to housing microfinance, at longer terms and lower rates than traditional consumer loans, households can undertake the process of building their housing over a shorter time period and end up with a better quality home.

Mortgage Markets in Africa

The Centre for Affordable Housing Finance in Africa (CAHF) has been exploring aspects of mortgage markets, specifically in South Africa, for some time, charting the access frontier specifically in the housing finance market, looking at the differentiated performance of the affordable and conventional mortgage books, and more recently tracking mortgage profitability.