Ghana’s Ambassador to Italy, His Excellency Charles Agyei-Amoama, has urged Ghanaians in Italy to take advantage of opportunities being offered by Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA) to consider buying houses in Ghana. He made the statement when he cut a tape to open a Ghana Housing Exhibition Show in Vicenza, north of Italy. The two-day exhibition, mounted at the plush Alpha Hotel, brought together 17 different Estate House developers and banking institutions prepared to offer mortgage facilities to Ghanaians in Italy and investors to Ghana. Accompanied by Jonathan Bartels-Kodwo, Minister Counselor and Head of the Consular Section at the Ghana Embassy in Rome, the Ghanaian Honorable Stateman in his remarks stated that housing has been one of the greatest challenges in Ghana indicating the country has a short fall of more than 500,000 housing units whilst supply figures ranges between 25,000 and 40,000 units per annum as against annual requirements of 70,000 units. “We believe that exhibition such as this would go a long way not only to address these short falls but augment government efforts in providing basic enviromentally friendly homes for our citizens,” he said. He commended Regalon Property Consultants and the Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA) in general for their bold initiatives in coming to Italy adding the NPP Government of Ghana in pursuit of one of its key policy objectives has been making strenous efforts to assist GREDA and other Developers through sector Ministries such as Ministry of Works, Housing and Water Resources, Lands, Forestry and Mines to ease or remove the numerous constraints associated with aquisition of land and building of properties in Ghana. He also mentioned that the Ghana Standards Board has announced it is about to unveil a new building code to ensure that all constructional works on housing meets stipulated technical standrds as part of efforts to meet current trends to development and safety. “The new code,” he pointed out, “will give material and technical specification including fortification standards to guide building inspectors when evaluating projects.” The existing constructional work policy in Ghana according to His Excellency is forty years old and is found to be unsuitable for the industry’s ever-changing and dynamic progression and when replaced will play a crucial role to ensure that buildings meet the required standards to enable Ghanaian products compete adequately on the international market. The Ambassador was later taken round the various stands at the exibition by Dr. Alex Tweneboah, President of GREDA, as he inspected mounted photos and brochures of the estate houses and talked to personals of the developers and the banking institutions present. He assured GREDA he and his staff at the Ghana Embassy in Rome will take it upon themselves to continue the crusade of attracting more clients for GREDA within the the corners of Italy where they are on official assignment. Particpants were taken through various stages at the stands as they asked questions about buying a house in Ghana through GREDA and the possibilty of paying through mortgage provided by the bank financiers present, among them HFC and Fidelity Banks. In a seperate interview with Samuel Antwi, Chief Executive Officer of Regalon Estate Agents - one of the Estate Developers - he said the purpose of GREDA coming to Italy after similar exhibitions in London and Paris is to show the Ghanaian community and Italians that Developers in Ghana are very serious. “Hopefully from what we have shown here anybody interested in buying a house in Ghana can depend on GREDA. It creates a much more enabling enviroment,” he added. The price range of houses displayed is between 18,000 to 600,000 Ghana cedis ($18,000 to $600,000) from a one bedroom house to a wide range of houses. “Basically, as far as requirements are concerned in buying one of these houses in Ghana you’ve got to have at least 40 to 50% of the purchase price as down payment when buying on cash purchase, if on the other hand you want a mortgage then HFC or Fidelity Bank would provide such facility with an initial payment of 20 – 30% of the price and rest of the balance is to paid within 10-15years under monthly instalments,” the Regalon Chief Executive officer further explained. Source: GHP