Property Technology, a broad spectrum of digital innovations, is streamlining the real estate sector by enhancing efficiency, transparency, and accessibility.
This encompasses online platforms for property searches and leases, online shortlet apps, virtual tour apps, and sophisticated AI and big data-driven applications that are revolutionizing the industry.
The International Monetary Fund’s publication on the role of technology in the African real estate sector aptly highlights the transformation prop-tech has brought to the sector, especially the informal housing sector.
Prop-tech offers valuable opportunities to support Africa’s largely informal housing sector by leveraging digital platforms, mobile technology, data analytics, and smart city systems. Through Prop-tech, sub-national governments, city councils, land regulators and the people who work in them are building a bridge between the adaptive flexibility of the continent’s housing sector and the structured governance processes necessary to enable sustainable growth within the sector.
Here is how Prop-tech is revolutionizing the real estate market in the continent’s major markets.
GHANA
In Ghana, the government has deployed Blockchain technology that offers the potential to revolutionize property management by enabling decentralized registries and secure digital contracts that circumvent bureaucratic hurdles. This has gained traction among mortgage lenders in several countries, allowing them to record liens on properties outside the traditional, often less trusted, cadastral systems.
Furthermore, blockchain has been successfully piloted in informal settlements, such as Kumasi, Ghana. In these projects, a unified land registry was established, and traditional paper-based land records were digitized onto a shared ledger.
NIGERIA
In Nigeria, property apps are empowering small-scale developers by connecting them to wider markets. These platforms streamline market entry, enabling them to seamlessly participate in formal trade and distribution networks. User activity and performance data on these platforms provide valuable creditworthiness information to lenders, facilitating access to finance and supporting the growth of these small businesses.
In the same vein, the market is saturated with different apps where one can search for a home to buy, rent, lease, or sell. Virtual tours of properties are now increasingly very common in big cities like Lagos and Abuja which have huge volumes of traffic.
RWANDA
In 2013, Rwanda embarked on a comprehensive Land Tenure Regularization program. This ambitious initiative encompassed the demarcation, adjudication, digitization, and registration of all land parcels within the country. To further enhance land ownership security, Rwanda has implemented an electronic certificate system known as ‘e-Title’. This system allows landowners to conveniently and affordably access their title certificates through the National Land Authority’s official website.
The country is home to tens of mobile apps where tourists and travellers can search and check into affordable short-let apartments and hotels.
KENYA
In Kenya, the government is deploying Geographic Information Systems (GIS), drones, and satellite imagery to help map strategic cities and urban areas. This technology now provides real-time data on informal settlements, towns, cities, urban planning, and economic activities, enabling city planners to better understand and respond to the dynamics of the informal sector.
MOZAMBIQUE
E-lending platforms are effectively supporting the rent-to-buy housing models in Mozambique. Blockchain technology has significantly reduced transaction costs, particularly by enhancing data verification. This has transformative potential for housing affordability, expanding market access for both households and developers.
In Mozambique, developers are successfully leveraging blockchain technology to make their homes accessible to 80% of the population, a substantial increase from the previous 3% accessibility rate under the traditional mortgage model
SOUTH AFRICA
South Africa has the second largest prop-tech market in Africa, just behind Nigeria. The country is home to many online apps that are redefining the real estate market in southern Africa’s largest economy. Virtual tours, short-let apps, optimized online searches for properties and deployment of blockchain technology to streamline operations have positioned the country as one of the choicest locations for real estate investors in the continent.
