Housing transformation, rent gap and gentrification in Ghana’s traditional houses: Insight from compound houses in Bantama, Kumasi

Advance rent mobilisation strategies of graduate renters in Ghana: a submarket of the private rental housing market

“…We classify financial assistance from employers and financial institutions as bridging capital because there are often legally enforceable contractual obligations that regulate how funding is accessed from these sources. This option has been highlighted in previous research (See Asante & Ehwi, 2020 ; Owusu-Ansah et al, 2018 ). While employers don’t need to support their employees with the payment of their AR, we contend that it is often in their business interest to partly or fully fund employees’ AR.…”

“…In 2010, Ghana became one of the few countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with more than half of its population living in urban areas (Asante, 2020 ; Ghana Statistical Service, 2014a ). During the last decade, Ghana’s population has increased from about 24.7 million in 2010 to 30.8 million in 2021, and more than one-third of the population live in the Greater Accra or Ashanti Region (Ghana Statistical Service, 2021 ).…”

“…Ehwi et al ( 2020 ) capture this difficulty succinctly by arguing that first-time and regular renters in Dansoman, a suburb of Accra, have to save over 9 months and 7 months of their net income respectively to pay the 2 years’ AR. Furthermore, Asante & Ehwi ( 2020 ) have also demonstrated that the housing transformations taking place in rental accommodations in Kumasi are doubling monthly rents and increasing the AR beyond the financial capability of low-income households. They further argue that ‘both the poor and rich are made financially worse off due to the practice of AR’ (p. 20).…”

“…Similarly, the study by Owusu-Ansah et al ( 2018 ) on the relative power of landlords and tenants to shape the rental housing market, found that 60% of the 344 renters they sampled from Accra and Tema relied on friends and family members to raise the AR while the remaining 40% had to take moderate interest loans from their employers. In a recent study by Asante & Ehwi ( 2020 ), they indicated that some renters resort to bank loans to pay their AR. As insightful as these funding sources reported seem, their lack of theoretical grounding makes it difficult to interrogate the logic behind the different strategies that renters use, the sources of funds they draw upon, and how these strategies change over time as the AR assumes a cyclical nature.…”

Differentiation under capitalism: Genesis and consequences of the rent gap

“…As the difference between various property rights and their social rights , social differentiation facilitates the theorising of the politics of property rights – ‘the social relations that underpin the entire rent gap framework and the struggles of who gets enriched by capitalised ground rent’ (Lees et al, 2008: 81). Asante and Ehwi (2020) find that dwelling unit with shared facilities in Kumasi, Ghana is modified into apartments where tenants have exclusive access to bathrooms, toilets and kitchens etc., due to social differentiation based on the right of use. Furthermore, the rent of these renovated properties increases at least 100% after such physical transformation, pricing out the low-income households.…”