Determinants for assessing self-help housing affordability in Ghana’s housing sector: a Delphi approach

Abstract

Self-help housing is the main route to homeownership acquisition in most developing countries, and it continues to make yearly contribution to these nations’ housing stocks. However, it faces several challenges like; escalating building materials prices, access to land and inadequate housing financing; which affects its affordability. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the key determinants influencing its affordability. Delphi was employed to validate the determinants, with 26 experts selected from Ghana’s housing sector. The experts’ responses were analyzed using various statistical tools. First, mean score was used to rank the determinants, while median and interquartile deviation (IQD) were used to measure consensus on each determinant. Lastly, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance and Chi-square were used to measure respectively, the agreement and consistency among the experts across the rounds. Strong consensus was reached on twenty-eight determinants after the second round. The determinants like income, savings, land cost, building materials cost, and labour and transposition costs were ranked as highest to have influence on its affordability. The outcome of the study will facilitate the development of an appropriate model for measuring its affordability at the household level. Besides, it could engender housing policy for its faster delivery in Ghana.