The Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA) has urged the government to build affordable houses for the youth to rent rather than providing low interest loans for Ghanaians.
This follows the announcement on the provision of low interest loans for eligible Ghanaians to rent affordable houses through the National Rental Assistance Scheme. This was highlighted during the official launch of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) 2020 manifesto in the Central Region on Saturday August 22, 2020.
Executive Secretary of GREDA, Samuel Amegayibor in an interview, attributed the issue of the rent system in the country to demand and supply stating that landlords take advantage of the situation to charge huge advance payments.
“The problem with our rent issue is purely demand and supply, if we had a lot of houses on the market for people to rent, obviously the landlords cannot be dictating how much rent advance they would want to charge. In fact, they would have to come and lure or lobby you to come and rent their property. But we have a situation where the demand on the market is far higher than what is supplied on the market and so the landlords take advantage of the situation and are demanding huge advance for rent”. He said.
He further urged government to “channel all resources” into building more houses as it will cushion the burden on the youth.
“ If we want to actually cure the problem then the fundamental problem with our renting advance has to do with demand and supply. So if we can rather channel our resources into getting more houses so that people will have places to sleep without any difficulties, the landlords will not have any reason to demand more renting advance”. He added.
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