President John Dramani Mahama has proposed a new financing scheme to help Ghanaians with unfinished houses secure funds to complete their properties and move into them.

The proposal seeks to leverage the National Housing Fund (NHF) in partnership with financial institutions to create a dedicated financing product for owners of incomplete houses.

Under the proposed scheme, homeowners would receive financing to complete their properties and begin repaying the loans after moving into their homes.

President Mahama believes the initiative could unlock millions of cedis already invested in unfinished houses across the country while reducing the financial pressure on homeowners who continue to pay rent elsewhere.

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

“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,” the President said.

How the scheme could work

President Mahama suggested that the initiative could initially target selected communities where large numbers of unfinished houses have been identified.

Engineers and architects would assess the properties and prepare Bills of Quantities to determine how much additional funding would be required to complete each house.

The financial circumstances and income levels of the owners would then be assessed to determine their repayment capacity.

“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 structures are already at advanced stages of construction, including the roofing stage, and could be completed with relatively modest financial assistance.

He also proposed linking the financing scheme to a rent-to-own arrangement.

Under such an arrangement, beneficiaries could move into their completed houses and use the money they would otherwise have paid as rent to service the loans.

“I mean, we must think outside the box when it comes to these things,” President Mahama added.

Over 1.8 million structures incomplete

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

The 2021 Population and Housing Census recorded 1,065,387 structures that were completely roofed but not completed, while another 825,367 structures were incomplete and without roofing.

The figures, however, cover structures generally and do not establish the exact number of privately owned residential houses whose owners are paying rent elsewhere.

The census 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 figure increased to 71.3 per cent.

Ayariga calls unfinished houses ‘dead capital’

The Minister for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Mahama Ayariga, described the money invested in unfinished houses as “dead capital”.

He said many Ghanaians had invested substantial amounts of money into construction but remained tenants because they lacked the resources to complete their houses.

Mr Ayariga called for measures to unlock the capital trapped in unfinished properties while improving the planning of housing development.

He also expressed concern about the rapid horizontal expansion of Ghanaian cities.

According to him, some people are constructing houses in areas without adequate infrastructure, thereby increasing the eventual cost of providing roads, electricity, water and other essential services.

He urged Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to consider more vertical development and better planning to improve the coordination of housing and infrastructure.

Calls for new housing finance products

The conference also heard calls for housing finance products tailored to the realities of ordinary Ghanaians, particularly workers in the informal sector.

The Deputy Minister for Works, Housing and Water Resources, Gizella Tetteh-Agbotui, said Ghana’s housing challenge was not only about a shortage of houses but also a shortage of accessible financing.

She called for longer-term mortgages 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 schemes to support young and first-time homeowners.

The Deputy Minister identified high land and infrastructure costs, expensive construction materials, limited access to long-term construction finance and land administration challenges as some of the factors pushing up the cost of housing.

NHF mortgage rate drops to 8.4%

Meanwhile, the National Housing Fund resumed lending under the National Mortgage Scheme last month at an interest rate of 8.4 per cent, down from 13.5 per cent.

Developer financing under the scheme currently stands at 10.4 per cent.

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

President Mahama, however, cautioned that conventional mortgage schemes alone would not be enough to address Ghana’s housing challenge.

He said traders, artisans, farmers, transport operators and other self-employed workers must also be incorporated into the housing finance system.

The President proposed using alternative methods, including savings history and verifiable business cash flows, to assess the ability of informal-sector workers to repay housing loans.

If implemented, the proposed scheme could provide thousands of Ghanaians with a pathway to complete unfinished homes, move out of rented accommodation and unlock billions of cedis currently trapped in incomplete properties.