Understanding African Real Estate Markets

This book brings together a broad range of research that interrogates how real estate market analysis, finance, planning, and investment for residential and commercial developments across the African continent are undertaken. In the past two decades, African real estate markets have rapidly matured, creating the conditions for new investment opportunities which has increased the demand for a deeper understanding of the commercial and residential markets across the continent. The chapters consider issues that pertain to formal real estate markets and the critical relationship between formal and informal property markets on the continent.

With contributing authors from South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, the book considers the achievements of African real estate markets while also highlighting the complex central themes such as underdeveloped land tenure arrangements, the availability of finance in both the commercial and residential sectors, rapidly growing urban areas, and inadequate professional skills. This book is essential reading for students in real estate, land management, planning, finance, development, and economics programs who need to understand the nuances of markets in the African context. Investors and policy makers will learn a lot reading this book too.

Aly Karam is a visiting associate professor in the School of Architecture and Planning at University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He earned a PhD in city and regional planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, North Carolina. His research interests and publications extend to both the planning and the architecture disciplines. In architecture he publishes on marketing and on the use of IT in practice and its effect on the management of the architecture offices. His planning research and publications revolve around informality, land and real estate, housing policy, and the housing process.

François Viruly is an associate professor and director of the Urban Real Estate Research Unit at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He has been President and Executive Director of the African Real Estate Society and the 2022 President of the International Real Estate Society. His research interest lies in the development and sustainability of property markets across the African continent.

Catherine Kariuki is a lecturer at the Department of Real Estate, University of Nairobi. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in land economics and a Master of Arts degree in housing administration and is a registered and licensed valuer. Her research interests are in property management, valuation, housing and land management and administration. She is a past President of the African Real Estate Society and a board member of the International Real Estate Society. She has previously served as a board member of the Valuer’s Registration Board.

Victor A. Akujuru holds a BSc degree in valuation and estate management from Bristol Polytechnic, a MSc in urban land appraisal from the University of Reading, and a PhD in built environment from Salford University, all in England. He is a fellow of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers, a registered estate surveyor and valuer, a Right of Way Agent, and a Right of Way Instructor. He has held visiting research positions at Kaduna State University, and University of Jos, Nigeria. He is a past president of the African Real Estate Society.