Why South Africa is now ripe for investment

A leading global equity investor
believes that there is potential for large scale investment in affordable
property in South Africa. 
International Housing Solutions (IHS) believes that it is now time for
the private sector to get involved in the construction of affordable homes in
South Africa.

Private sector to get involved building affordable property in South
Africa

Soula Proxenos, managing partner
at IHS, spoke after the third annual affordable housing development and finance
conference in the country.  She
said it was clear that urban densification had to be addressed as a matter of
urgency.

Ms Proxenos said: “Local and
international private equity funding is increasingly being attracted by the
development of low-and-middle income housing, and densification helps to
facilitate such investment. It has now become critically important for the
private sector to be active in this space.”

The expert also pointed to recent
research by Francois Viruly, a professor at the University of Cape Town whish
showed that densification around urban centres was rapidly escalating.  This, in turn, is creating many more
institutional investment opportunities.

IAfrica reports that ‘this concentration around public transport
nodes will change the nature of “how our cities expand”, and Viruly
argued that we cannot think of cities in terms of circular nodes, but that we
needed to do so in a linear manner, as cities would densify along the public
transport routes.’

Ms Proxenos pointed to the models
in many other countries around the world where significant local and foreign
investment is made in the affordable housing market.  By replicating this for property in South Africa, this
solution could address housing backlogs and the challenges of
densification. 

Private investment in affordable
housing could also help address other socio-economic issues such as the
transformation of apartheid-style town planning, economic growth and job
creation.