Mahama proposes financing scheme to help Ghanaians complete unfinished houses

President John Dramani Mahama has proposed a new financing arrangement to help owners of unfinished houses secure funding to complete their properties and move into them.

Under the proposal, the National Housing Fund (NHF), working with financial institutions, would develop a financing product that allows owners of partially completed houses to obtain loans to finish construction and repay the facilities after occupying the properties.

President Mahama made the proposal on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, at the maiden National Conference on Housing Finance in Accra.

He said the initiative could unlock substantial funds already invested in unfinished buildings while helping property owners who continue to pay rent despite having houses under construction.

"I travel all over the country, and anytime we are coming to land, and you see the number of unfinished houses all over. It is mind-boggling," President Mahama said.

He suggested that the programme could initially target selected communities where unfinished houses would be identified and assessed by engineers and architects.

The professionals, he said, could prepare bills of quantities to establish how much additional funding would be required to complete each property. The financial circumstances and incomes of the owners would also be assessed to determine their capacity to repay the loans.

"Can't we get a product that allows us to take an area, identify all the uncompleted houses there, get engineers and architects to do the bill of quantities? Let's see how much more it would take to complete them," he said.

According to the President, some of the unfinished properties are already at the roofing stage and could be completed relatively quickly if their owners receive the necessary financial support.

He also proposed connecting the scheme to rent-to-own arrangements, allowing beneficiaries to occupy their completed homes and use money that would otherwise have gone towards rent to service the financing.

"I mean, we must think outside the box when it comes to these things," the President said.

Unfinished houses

The proposal comes amid the large number of unfinished structures across Ghana.

Data from the 2021 Population and Housing Census showed that 1,065,387 structures had been completely roofed but remained unfinished, while a further 825,367 structures were incomplete and had no roofing.

The census figures cover structures generally and do not establish how many were privately owned residential houses whose owners were simultaneously paying rent elsewhere.

It also found that 65.8 per cent of not-fully-completed structures with some form of roofing were being used for residential purposes. In urban areas, the proportion increased to 71.3 per cent.

Minister for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Mahama Ayariga, described the funds tied up in unfinished houses as "dead capital".

He said many Ghanaians had committed substantial resources to construction but continued to live in rented accommodation because they lacked the funds to complete their homes.

Mr Ayariga called for greater efforts to unlock the resources already invested in unfinished properties while improving the planning and delivery of housing.

He also raised concerns about the horizontal expansion of cities, saying buildings were often being constructed in areas without adequate infrastructure and services. This, he noted, increased the eventual cost of providing roads, water, electricity and other essential services.

He said Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies should consider more vertical development and improved spatial planning to better coordinate housing and infrastructure delivery.

Call for new housing finance products

The discussions at the conference also focused on the need for housing finance products tailored to the circumstances of ordinary Ghanaians, particularly workers outside the formal sector.

Deputy Minister for Works, Housing and Water Resources, Gizella Tetteh-Agbotui, said Ghana's housing challenge was not simply a shortage of housing units but also a financing problem.

She called for longer-term mortgage facilities for formal-sector workers, housing microfinance products for informal-sector workers and staged construction financing for households building their homes incrementally.

She also advocated rent-to-own and shared-equity arrangements to provide more options for young people and first-time homeowners.

Ms Tetteh-Agbotui said developers faced several challenges, including high land and infrastructure costs, expensive building materials, limited access to long-term construction financing and difficulties associated with land administration.

These factors, she said, contributed significantly to the high cost of housing.

The National Housing Fund resumed lending under the National Mortgage Scheme in September 2026 at an interest rate of 8.4 per cent, down from 13.5 per cent, while financing for developers under the scheme stands at 10.4 per cent.

Chairman of the National Housing Fund Board, Okoamankra Kwame Akwonu X, said the Fund had also piloted a Rent-to-Own Scheme and was seeking to increase investment in its housing finance programmes to accommodate more applicants.

President Mahama said existing mortgage schemes should be expanded but stressed that conventional mortgages alone would not resolve Ghana's housing challenge.

He said people in the informal economy, including traders, artisans, farmers and transport operators, must also be brought into the housing finance system.

The President proposed using alternative measures to assess the repayment capacity of such applicants, including their savings records and verifiable business cash flows.