Cost and benefits of rent control in Kumasi, Ghana

Over the past forty years, rent control has been a feature of housing in Ghana. This study focusses on the housing market in Kumasi, the second largest city in Ghana. The authors examine the characteristics of the rent control regime in force there, and assess the costs and benefits of rent control, on landlords and on tenants, and its effect on the housing stock. Rent control has been successful in ensuring that housing is very inexpensive for most households, in both absolute terms and in the proportion of income devoted to rent. Thesecontrols have deprived landlords of economic returns on their property, causing them to withdraw stock from renting to use for their own family members and to reduce maintenance. However, rent control is not the only constraint on the housing market, in Kumasi or in Ghana. The paper also describes other supply side and regulatory constraints; such as those affecting land, finance, and choice of building design and materials. A number of options for relaxation/decontrol are studied with the aid of a simple present value model. Along with decontrol of new construction it is recommended that floating up and out of controls over a five year period should be considered, along with policy changes to ensure ready supplies of land, finance, and building materials. Such policies are essential, given that private housing investment provides the great majority of rooms in Ghanaian urban areas.