Real Estate Developer and Executive Chairman of JL Holdings fears most Ghanaians may not be able to benefit from the government’s affordable housing project because of their income levels. Dr James Orleans-Lindsay was speaking at the Chartered Institute of Marketing Ghana Evening with a personality on the topic: Marketing in the Real Estate Sector: Pricing and Affordability. According to Dr. Orleans-Lindsay, “Simple maths without putting any interest and cost of land would tell me that your 2 and 3-bedroom homes are going to cost minimum 50,000 dollars and as per the analysis that we’ve done, straight away it’s not affordable because affordable is supposed to be something below 20,000 US dollars.” “The nurse gets 1,400 cedis a month, the teacher 1,600 cedis and by affordability over 30% of household income should not be used to service your property be it rent or purchase properties so there’s nothing affordable in there,” he added. Dr Orleans-Lindsay has however outlined some solutions to tackle the increasing housing deficit. These include the reliance on creative solutions, changing people’s perception of low-cost housing, technology intervention, state intervention, research and development and digital marketing as a tool to drive the sector’s growth. The Real Estate Developer has however maintained that “it would be highly impossible for the private developer to provide affordable real estate for the mass population in need of homes and other types of spaces at current prevailing conditions such as high-interest rates, dollar instability, high land cost, high cost of material etc.” He has therefore called for consensus building and innovative approaches especially towards using local materials in housing delivery and government’s intervention. He has estimated that about 80% of Ghanaians cannot afford mortgages. Last Wednesday, the government in partnership with the UN office for project service cut the sod for the commencement of work on some 200,000 housing units estimated at five billion dollars. That is in a bid to bridge the housing deficit which currently stands at about 2.5 million housing units. The CIMG Evening with a personality brought together marketing practitioners to discuss price and affordability issues in the real estate sector.