DRC’s real estate market progressively developing, says industry official

Due to the fact that the DRC is growing from a fairly low base, it presents opportunities across the board, from affordable housing to industrial, healthcare, and commercial.

CAPE TOWN, August 7 (ANA) – The Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) emerging market is not necessarily equated with the real estate market in Africa but the country’s real estate market is “progressively developing”, compared to what it was three to five years ago, according to an industry official.

Patrick Katabua, account director, Africa desk at Cushman & Wakefield | BROLL, said: “From a growth and development perspective, that is readily visible. However, it is fairly complex to compare the DRC real estate market to that in say Nigeria or Kenya, for example, which have established stock exchanges and large property funds.”

That is not yet the case in the DRC. Thus, its real estate sector is not as formalised as the other economic powerhouses of the continent, he said.

Katabua will deliver a presentation outlining how the DRC real estate market is developing, at the 12th Africa Property Investment (API) Summit 2021 from September 6 to 10.

Due to the DRC property sector growing from a fairly low base, it presents opportunities across the board, from affordable housing to industrial, healthcare, and commercial.

“It is about finding the right partner and packaging a solution that makes sense for that particular node. A lot of big brands have found that the ‘cut-and-paste’ model does not really work in the rest of Africa. You need to customise in accordance with the local context,” Katabua said.

“Our model at the moment is to provide best service to our clients, whether it be transactions, advisory services, valuations or production of bespoke market reports. We aim at representing our client’s interests from concept right through to completion, and team up with the best-in-class locally-based subject matter experts to ensure robust delivery on assignments.”

Meanwhile, Pan-African professional real-estate services provider Broll Property Group anticipates the African real estate market to normalise and bounce back to pre-Covid-19 levels by the first quarter, 2023.

Broll Group CEO Malcolm Horne, who will also deliver a keynote address at the API Summit this week said: “Our success is built on our in-depth knowledge and expertise, based on our tangible understanding of local markets across Africa.

“This allows us to provide end-to-end real estate solutions based on strategic, fully-integrated property services for both the occupier and investor segments,” Horne said.

“As a leading provider of end-to-end real estate solutions, an interesting correlation that we are monitoring is the potential relationship between the vaccination rollout in Africa and the associated economic recovery across the continent.”

He said many of the trends dominating the international real estate market at present were already prevalent or on an upward tick prior to Covid-19.

“A lot of the trends we have seen, whether globally or in Africa, had their roots before the pandemic. It was not a case of Covid-19 suddenly leading to massive change. It did accelerate market trends, especially as the sectors benefiting now had already started to grow prior to Covid-19.”

Looking at the international real estate market, Horne said the obvious winners at present are industrial, data centres and lifestyle, the latter focused on well-being and healthy living, in addition to healthcare.

“These have done very well. However, if you compare it to Africa, they have fared equally well.”

– African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Naomi Mackay