President John Dramani Mahama has announced the introduction of the National Housing Fund’s “Easy Rent” programme, an initiative aimed at helping workers overcome the financial burden of paying huge rent advances to secure accommodation.
The programme will enable eligible workers to access rent advance financing through the National Housing Fund, with beneficiaries repaying the amount through manageable monthly instalments.
President Mahama announced the initiative at the National Conference on Housing Financing, where he called for innovative financing mechanisms to make decent housing more accessible to Ghanaians.
He said the programme was designed to address one of the major challenges confronting tenants in Ghana, particularly young people and low- and middle-income households who struggle to raise large sums required for rent advances.
“Under Easy Rent, they will pay the rent advance for the worker, and then the worker will pay monthly so that they don’t have to put up those huge rent advances,” President Mahama explained.
According to him, Ghana’s current rent system often forces tenants to mobilise substantial amounts of money upfront before they can secure accommodation, putting significant pressure on household finances.
He said many young Ghanaians are compelled to use a large portion of their savings to pay rent advances, leaving them with limited resources to invest in businesses, education and other important household needs.
President Mahama recalled his own experience with his wife, Lordina, when they were young and searching for affordable accommodation in Accra.
He said the requirement to pay multiple years of rent in advance, coupled with fees charged by estate agents, placed considerable financial pressure on them at the time.
The President noted that many young Ghanaian families continue to encounter similar difficulties, making affordable rental housing an important part of the country’s housing policy.
He said government’s housing strategy must therefore provide a range of financing options, recognising that not every household would be able to access a conventional mortgage.
President Mahama identified rent-to-own schemes, secure rental accommodation, incremental housing finance and social housing assistance as options that should complement traditional mortgage financing.
He also called for greater attention to groups that are often excluded from formal housing finance, including women, persons with disabilities, informal sector workers and low-income households.
The President urged financial institutions to develop innovative ways of assessing the repayment capacity of informal sector workers, including through their savings records and verifiable business cash flows.
He said such approaches would help broaden access to housing finance and ensure that people outside the formal employment sector are not automatically excluded from opportunities to acquire decent accommodation.
President Mahama further challenged stakeholders in the housing sector to explore financing models capable of reducing the overall cost of housing while expanding access to more Ghanaians.
He stressed that the success of Ghana’s housing agenda should ultimately be measured by whether ordinary citizens can secure decent accommodation without enduring the constant financial strain associated with large rent advances.
The Easy Rent programme, he said, forms part of the government’s broader effort to expand affordable housing options and provide Ghanaian families with greater financial security in accessing decent accommodation.
