The increasing interest in Sub-Saharan Africa’s growing economies has seen corporate occupiers and real estate investors moving into these markets. Many African governments are realising the necessity to improve transparency to capitalise on the opportunities and maintain momentum.
The key drivers of the transparency improvement are:
• Growing presence of corporations, investors and real estate advisors is encouraging the start of market tracking and performance measurement
• Launching of first direct real estate performance index (outside South Africa) in Botswana
• Increasing quality of, and ease of access to, land registry information, as shown by the progress on land registry digitisation in Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Lagos State (Nigeria)
• Passing of REIT legislation in Kenya and South Africa
• Improvement in enforceability of contracts and professional standards of agents
Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia and Mauritius all secured a position in the Global top 10 improvers in JLL’s Real Estate Transparency Index 2014. “The increase in transparency in these markets is an outcome of concrete efforts by governments to improve the regulatory framework to create more business-friendly environments” noted Jeremy Kelly, Global Research Director at JLL. “While this is still a lot to be done before transparency across Sub-Saharan Africa reaches the level of other international markets, the pace of change is already impressive”.
“We are seeing more international corporations, investors and developers participating in the Sub-Saharan African growth story, which is leading to major changes in the way Africa’s real estate markets operate” added Mark Bradford, Chairman of JLL’s Sub-Saharan African business. “Inevitably, there will be setbacks and progress will be patchy but, over the medium term, transparency looks set to improve as international best-practice is introduced and Africa’s policymakers focus on initiatives to attract new investment”.
