A comparison of original owners and inheritors in housing supply and extension in Kumasi, Ghana

After a survey of 1022 households in Kumasi, the commercial centre for forest Ghana, the authors examine the characteristics of house owners and their accommodation. In particular they focus on the differences between owners who originally built the houses and those who have inherited them. They challenge the current orthodoxy that it is more expensive to become an owner now than it was in the past but demonstrate that ownership is achieved relatively late in life. In addition, owners have much lower incomes than current formal sector house prices would imply. They also demonstrate that owners who built are better off than their inheritor counterparts. Thus, inheritance passes ownership rights in Ghana to lower income households. Extenders differ very little from nonextenders. The provision of housing finance should increase the efficiency of housing supply in Kumasi.