Challenges And Opportunities Of Housing Finance In Sub-Saharan Africa. A Literature Review On Urban High-Rise Residential Housing

The paper identifies knowledge gap on housing finance literature in Sub-Saharan Africa through the lens of Malawi to enhance ongoing discussions on housing crisis in the global south. The study distinctly focuses on affordable urban high-rise housing (AUHRH, henceforth), being a land efficient option to affordable housing as opposed to horizontal housing, and for the first time within the region. Desk study approach was adopted where peer-reviewed research works were studied to explore the housing issues and identify gaps in literature on the subject matter. Literary findings confirm qualification of finance as the crux of affordable housing supply challenges in the region, with traditional financing proving to be exclusionary to middle and lower-income earners. The other key gap is on crowdfunding. While being christened as the best option for AUHRH with largest market share through diaspora remittances in the region, crowdfunding has not been employed in housing finance this far. Instead, Micro Finance Institutions (MFIs, henceforth) are taking the lead by providing more flexible source of housing finance though not for AUHRH. The identified gaps point to a need for empirical study to understand critical issues with regards to adopting innovative financing options especially real estate crowdfunding (REC, henceforth) in Sub-Saharan region. Key areas under such an intervention include legislation, viability, and determination of critical mass for investor participation. The study, therefore, forms a basis for future studies in this subject and on the continent.