Examining Rental Housing Affordability Among Eastern Ethiopian Cities

Abstract

The rental sector had been neglected in government housing policy as well as in the local government's resource allocation, though it apprehended a large number of urban dwellers and which will undoubtedly continue in the future. The objective of this study is to examine the rental housing affordability and its implication for low-income households. Specifically, it tried to critically evaluate the characteristics of rental housing, examined how affordable rental housing is and identify the legal and regulatory frameworks governing the rental housing market and finally based on the findings tried to devise a possible alternative that can enhance rental housing affordability. Questionnaires were distributed to 1162 rental households and officials were interviewed to capture their experience on regulatory and administrative issues. Global and local experiences on government housing policy and strategies revealed that the rental housing was less emphasized or in some cases, it was totally ignored. However, inter-census results population of confirmed that rental sectors had contributed a lot in addressing the residential needs of the urban poor and the contribution of the sector in addressing the housing needs are raised from 45percent to 54percent and the reverse is true for the case of home ownership. Results from the survey report confirmed that the rental levels in the sample cities were at the threshold levels. However, this does not mean that rent is affordable; rather the lessee had compromised with the adequacy of housing in order to avoid high rental price. Therefore, government should devise alternatives to promote rental sectors through regulation and policy interventions. Among the possible measures, getting rental housing on the larger urban policy is the first and most important intervention. Government should regulate the rental market through regulatory and policy measures by making balance the interests of both landlords and renters.

Keywords: Rent, need for a rental housing, private renters, affordability measures

DOI: 10.7176/JPID/50-05

Publication date:June 30^th 2019