Looking for a home to buy or rent can be a cumbersome process especially if you have to go from location to location to find out if there are any vacancies. That’s frankly an old school way of doing things that’s not only tedious but incredibly frustrating. Thanks to the internet, mobile phones and computers, this shouldn’t be so.
Ever pondered the question, where can I find real estate listings in Ghana? Whether you’re in Ghana or abroad and are looking for property to rent, buy or even sell, these online platforms are just the thing you need.
PS: this post also answers the question on real estate websites/online real estate companies in Ghana in case you were wondering.
Online Real Estate Marketplaces
These are classifieds for housing. Here, you can find anything from mansions, villas, and warehouses, down to things such as hostels for student accommodation. In no particular order, these are the online real estate marketplaces in Ghana.
Table of Contents
Meqasa
After acquiring Jumia House in 2018, Meqasa has become the de facto online property portal in Ghana. It was founded by three students at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) and through a series of funding rounds from MEST and Frontier Digital, has become an authority in Ghana’s real estate sector.
This portal has the largest database of properties from lands, commercial buildings, warehouses, guest houses, apartments, mansions, villas and pretty much everything you can think of in terms of property in Ghana. It also has a powerful search engine with several filters to help you find just the property you’re looking for.
The user experience and interface however are not so great and can be a major turn off with how cluttered and overwhelming it is with ads. It also looks old.
Outside of real estate listings, the company also organizes an annual housing fair which connects property professionals (in Ghana and beyond) directly with seekers from all over.
The name Meqasa is a bastardization of Mi Casa, as in, mi casa es su casa, the Spanish expression of welcome meaning “my house is your house.” Just like the name’s “exotic” origins, the platform is heavily skewed towards the ex-pat market and as a result, many homeowners, developers and agents list their properties in US Dollars, consequently making properties on the portal expensive.
Jiji (formerly OLX)
Just like Tonaton, Jiji is a general marketplace (otherwise known as a horizontal) that specialises in everything including property. Jiji has more than 24,000 property listing on the website. This includes everything from uncompleted buildings to event centres (an often overlooked niche) when it comes to online real estate websites in Ghana.
Edanra
If there’s one thing property seekers in Ghana loathe in the house-hunting process, it’s probably real estate agents and their weird commissions and fees. Edanra aims to remove that middleman role and connect tenants directly with landlords and eliminating property scam in the process.. The company is using an AirBnB approach to achieve this. If you’ve got a spare room, why not make some money off it? Landlords are essentially hosts and anyone can sign up to be a host (landlord) on the platform.
Here’s a beautiful ad that shows what Edanra is trying to accomplish.
LIFE IS SIMPLE DON’T COMPLICATE IT.
— edanra (@edanragh) November 6, 2020
The story of edanra.
visit https://t.co/2bsPUlfn6M today and tell your story.
Life is now simple with edanra. pic.twitter.com/Btw1tZ6ksT
Tonaton
Tonaton.com is a popular online marketplace where practically everything is sold. In many ways, Tonaton is the eBay of Ghana.
As a marketplace dealing in everything, Tonaton.com has an extensive selection of real estate listings across Ghana and for all budgets.
The biggest difference between Meqasa and Tonaton is their target audience, Meqasa seems to be targeted at the affluent while Tonaton is for everyone.
Tonaton means to buy and sell in the Akan dialect, Twi and was founded in 2013 by Nils Hammar of Saltside Technology in Sweden.
PlotAm
Plotam is a platform for listing and finding real estate properties in Ghana. Listings are displayed on a map for better searching and context. Plotam is both a website (plotam.com) and a mobile app.
Accra Expat
Accra Expat isn’t so much an online marketplace as it is a community. It’s is an online community for Ghana’s expatriate community. One of the major needs of expats moving or relocating to the country is housing. Accra Expat’s real estate platform is a direct response to that.
It runs a classifieds and events platform where expats can buy, sell and rent houses, apartments, and commercial spaces more to expats and indigenes alike. It offers expats options for rental and sale of residential and commercial properties, but with an emphasis on short-term holiday stays in Accra.
Accra Expat offers little in the way of options for searching for property. It also has a horrible user interface but a somewhat effective user experience. However, Accra Expat is the most trustworthy of the online platforms since all properties are curated and tenant feedback is highly valued. The site maintains a blacklist of horrible landlords to save tenants from having bad experiences.
The site operates an active Facebook page and private group that mimics what’s on the website that absolves this pain point. Accra Expat also runs a personalized service where it takes individual property requests.
Dwellys
Dwellys’ mission is to redefine real estate in the customer’s favor. The company has set out to help customers find a residential or commercial property to rent or buy in Ghana, Africa and the world over.
According to Dwellys’, their website features thousands of property options from developers in Ghana, Africa, and the whole world. Properties on the website cut across land, residential units for sale or rent and office spaces. you are looking to buy or rent a new home, office space or land. The company also offers offline housing support.
Dwellys was founded by Francis Opey and launched in June, 2019.
House Master
From the website, HouseMaster.house is a online platform, aimed at minimizing the complications that arise in almost all real estate transactions. HouseMaster seeks to remove the stress clients go through in looking for properties that fits their budget. HouseMaster provides modern and innovative tools to facilitate transactions between buyers and sellers
GetRoomSpace
GetRoomSpace is another online listing platform that aims to make the property rental and sales process a breeze. GetRoomSpace has an ambitious mission statement, to make the experience of buying and selling of properties as cost-effective as possible while maintaining the highest level of professionalism and service.
GetRooms
An oft-neglected real estate market is student housing. That’s where GetRooms comes in. It’s an online room booking application which allows students to conveniently book rooms in hostels. GetRooms connects students directly to the hostel management and simplifies the hunting process so students don’t have to walk long distances and go through so much stress to just find a room in the university.
More on the platform below.
Ghana Property Centre
According to the website, Ghana Property Centre (GPC) is a leading property website in Ghana with property listings for sale, rent and lease. Just like the others on the list, the portal aims to offer property seekers an easy way to find property in Ghana. The site features a property request feature that can be useful for seekers who don’t find what they desire on the site.
Additionally, it features data that investors will drool over. There’s a whole search engine for property demand trends and average property prices.
RenthauZ
RentHauz is a home rental marketplace that connects tenants and landlords. The platform seeks to provide the most comprehensive rent solution for a seamless rental experience.
The platform offers shops, offices, warehouses and hostels in addition to the typical apartments and houses. There’s also an app for iOS and Android that loads data really fast in a decent user interface. A useful feature on the app is its ability to state if a property is off the market. This is highly useful as it saves time searching for a home.
Cofundie
Cofundie isn’t a listings platform per se. Instead, it’s a real estate crowdfunding platform. Think Kickstarter, but for real estate only. CoFundie was originally a platform for crowd-sourcing funds for the development of buildings using cost-efficient and time-saving techniques. The model has evolved and now includes rentals for both hosts and people who need rentgages.
The different Cofundie models are detailed below:
Cofundie
Sponsor the construction of homes in Africa and get a share of the profit from rent or sale. Developments this applies to include Appolonia Mews (Oyibi, Accra), Wala Park (Oyibi, Accra) and Grace Court (East Legon Hills, Ghana). Appolonia Mews and Wala Park are developed by Rendeavour (company behind Appolonia) and AHA Global.
Hostify
Monetize your unused housing units with our done for you service.
Rentify
Cofundie pays your rent while you pay them back monthly or at your own pace
Other Real Estate Websites in Ghana
There are new players springing up everyday and it is becoming a crowded space. This just means more options for seekers. Whether all these new real estate websites will be here for the long run is yet to be seen.
Some other real estate websites in Ghana worth checking out.
- ApartmentsGh
- Rent Chamber
- Realtimate
- Baobab
- Proptis Ghana
- Aflok
- PropHunt Ghana
Multiple Listings Services
Loop MLS by GREDA
The MLS established in Ghana is the first in Africa and will be one of the systems needed to solve the transparency, valuation standards, and data integrity issues to improve efficiency and increased investment in Ghana and beyond.
Chaos in the property market is expected to be reduced and replaced with orderliness and audited systems as the MLS is being introduced.
Conclusion
Finding property in Ghana, be it office space, a house, an apartment, shops, warehouses and more has never been easier thanks to the internet and all the real estate businesses it has birthed. Outside of these online portals, it’s also useful to visit the websites of real estate companies in Ghana such as Devtraco, Eden Heights, Goldkey Properties, Mobus Properties, Regimanuel Gray and more, as well as their signature developments such as The Lennox by Clifton Homes, Paradise Estate at East Legon Hills and Solaris by Swami India, NoVa by Devtraco, The Signature by Capemay Properties and more.
I'm Kadi Tay and I write about different things, real estate is one of them. The plan is to make real estate info fun by kicking out Mr. corporate stiff. So don't be surprised if you see a Kwesi Arthur reference somewhere. I promise it'll make sense. When I'm not working magic here, you'll find me talking geek stuff in Africa, travelling with my buds, highlighting young people killing it, talking about life and adulting, or doingrandom things.
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2 replies on “Ghana’s Online Real Estate Platforms”
Reblogged this on Workings Of A Socially Awkward Cranium.
Thanks for including Plotam! We strive each day to improve the real estate experience for both agents and clients so being mentioned in your article feels very rewarding. Kudos to your efforts!
Kofi
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