Zambia needs 150,000 housing units annually

Zambia needs 150,000 housing units annually to solve the housing problem, local newspaper The Post reported on Thursday.

Bitrust Real Estate principal consultant Holland Mulenga told the newspaper on Wednesday that Zambia needs to develop about 150, 000 housing units per year since 1996 but there have been on major development projects.

The problem with constructing housing units lies in the high cost associated with sourcing funds for such projects, he said.

It is encouraging that many institutions are beginning to consider lending to buy homes but that the real estates are already few on the market, he said.

"Therein lies a great opportunity for investment," he said.

Mulenga said the high real estate prices are a result of most developers having built their property using expensive foreign exchange as input in construction.

He said prices of real estate are unlikely to fall in the short run because the property market is slow to react to the gain of the local currency kwacha.

"As other factors such as interest rates respond by falling too, we could see more purchases of real estate and that might give an impression that the property has become cheap," he said.

He said property prices are likely to stop growing and be maintained a current levels for the next year due to opposing factors such as falling interest rates and increased demand.

Mulenga is optimistic that the real estate sector could sustain a construction boom as long as banks and building societies could start financing mortgages.

Source: Xinhua