The Executive Secretary of Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA) Samuel Amegayibor has disclosed that many of the real estate houses being constructed in Ghana are not being purchased because Ghanaians can’t afford them.
The disclosure comes on the back of a survey conducted by GREDA which concluded that Ghanaians who earn less than GHC4000.00 a month cannot own a one-bedroom house in their lifetime.
The survey also noted 85% of Ghanaians cannot afford the so called affordable housing units being advocated by the government.
Speaking on Morning Starr Tuesday, Mr. Amegayibor said the country has failed to deal appropriately with housing challenges over the years.
“In Ghana, we have over emphasized on owning houses and that is becoming a burden to some. Most Ghanaians cannot afford to buy houses. When you speak to real estate developers, you’ll get to understand that most of the houses are not sold because people cannot afford to buy them. We’ve been having housing deficits a long time ago. We have been unable to control it,” he said.
For his part, the chairman of the housing committee in Parliament Nana Amoako said there is the need for Ghana to learn from the experiences of other countries in order to deal with its housing issues.
“As a government, we can’t build houses for everybody but government can set up schemes that will make it easier to address the rent issues in this country. Looking at how the housing scheme is regulated in other countries…we should be able to do same. If you compare the rental issues from outside to ours, you’ll notice that outside, rent is taken for two months in some cases… not more than two months advance. We all have to sit down and look at this whole housing accommodation issue once again”.
<<Print>>