Property owners now struggling to find tenants after USAID funding cut

Over a year since the cancellation of […]

Over a year since the cancellation of the United States Aid Agency (USAID), a part of the Zambian real estate sector has been affected, and several properties across prime areas are unoccupied.

 Obviously the project was receiving substantial funding over $350 million per year; part of it covered the housing and office leasing costs, benefiting a lot of property owners. In most prime areas, developers built large spaces and residential properties that housed most personnel for the organization, but now most of them are abandoned.

Revealing in an interview with the Zambian Business Times— ZBT, Black Property Senior Sales Consultant Mwansa Hara said most of the affected owners are now resizing their properties into small rental apartments.

“Most of the houses, usually big properties that housed the USAID offices and personnel, are now empty, dotted across the foreign missions area in Kabulonga,” he added.

 Most of the properties are costing between $4,000 and $5,000, which is costly for an average Zambian. Hara observed that the affected homeowners are in prime areas, such as Kabulonga, Long Acres, and Roma.

“Other homeowners are modifying the big houses to accommodate small units that they may start recouping because it is that bad, some houses that have stayed over a year.”

When asked about the biggest lesson that the property owners should consider from the predicament, Hara urged for moderate spending considering the risks involved.

 At the height of most property owners preferring to build bigger projects, either residential or commercial, Hara said, “They should have a budget that is at a certain level. Imagine spending on expensive materials from China; it would be difficult to lower the sale or lease. In case of such factors like the USAID, but if the spending was moderate, you can still strike a balance.”

Article by Samuel Mutale