African Countries with Lowest Mortgage Interest Rates

15 African countries with the lowest mortgage interest rates. Virtually every adult desires to own their own home. After all, having shelter over one’s head is a basic need, according to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Nobody wishes to spend the rest of their life paying rent to some landlord.

Unfortunately, owning a home anywhere in Africa can be very difficult. And that’s due to several factors, including the fact that the mortgage industry in Africa isn’t really accessible and reliable enough to serve those who need it. Also, there is the issue of high mortgage interest rates.

Little wonder many Africans would rather build their own houses from scratch. Sadly, this process would often take years due to the high cost of doing so. In the 2018 open access book Housing Market Dynamics in Africa, authors El-hadj M. Bah, Issa Faye and Zekebweliwai F. Geh detailed the construction cost conundrum in Africa, writing:

“The financing of housing development, like many other development issues faced by African countries, is quite challenging. This is mainly due to the lack of adequate conditions or resources to facilitate such financing. The housing finance market in Africa is exposed to a number of risks.”

The inefficiency of the housing finance market in Africa is one of the major causes of the housing deficits on the continent. Now, two questions a lot of Africans (especially young adults) ask themselves are:

Perhaps these are questions only banks, regulators and lawmakers in Africa can answer.

What is a mortgage interest rate?

According to The Balance, “a mortgage interest rate is a percentage of your total loan balance that’s paid on a monthly basis until your mortgage loan is paid off, along with your principal payment. It’s a component in determining the annual cost to borrow money from a lender to purchase a home or other property.”

Note that some African countries have some of the highest mortgage interest rates in the world. For instance, Zimbabwe’s mortgage interest rate is as high as 50%. Notwithstanding, there are still some countries with relatively low mortgage interest rates. We now highlight 15 such countries, courtesy of stats obtained from Statista.