PAN-African real estate professionals have called for urgent reforms to improve the operating environment of the property sector across the continent, make projects more bankable, and position the industry as investor-friendly.
  According to them, the bottlenecks limiting growth in African real estate markets are largely similar. These include inconsistent planning enforcement, limited legal literacy among developers, high compliance costs, weak project preparation capacity, poor stakeholder engagement at project inception, difficulties in land registration, ineffective planning authorities, and the absence of incentivised affordable housing finance mechanisms.
  
The experts urged governments and industry leaders to strengthen institutions responsible for project planning approvals, enact robust real estate laws backed by strong implementation frameworks, promote professional collaboration, and encourage developers to structure viable projects that can easily attract financing from banks with minimal risk exposure.
  They spoke at a Pan-African Real Estate webinar titled “From Policy to Projects: Translating Laws, Codes and Bills into Bankable Real Estate,” organised by the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (Lagos branch), the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Nigeria Group), and the International Real Estate Federation (FIABCI-Nigeria).
  The forum focused on cross-border discussions on the year’s outlook and featured leading experts from across Africa who provided regulatory insights and actionable strategies to support informed decision-making in diverse real estate markets.
  
In his opening remarks, the President of FIABCI-Nigeria, Akin Opatola, observed that Africa does not suffer from a shortage of policies or reform documents, but rather from weak execution and the inability to translate well-written frameworks into well-performing projects.
  He noted that real estate sits at the intersection of policy, capital, infrastructure, and people.
“When policy is clear, predictable, and investor-friendly, projects become bankable. When it is not, capital stays on the sidelines,” he said.
  Opatola stressed that the conversation was critical because it shifts focus from theory to implementation, from regulation to revenue, and from compliance to competitiveness. He called for shared standards and collaboration to build transparent, financeable, and sustainable real estate assets across African markets.
  
An Associate Professor in Real Estate Finance and Investment at the University of the Witwatersrand, Kola Akinsomi, explained that bankable projects must align with the expectations of investors, financiers, governments, and society.
 He outlined key criteria for bankability, including secure land title, compliance with trade and planning regulations, predictable cash flows, acceptable internal rates of return, and resilience to economic and currency shocks. He also emphasised the importance of sustained demand and long-term capital appreciation.
  Akinsomi advocated improved regulatory frameworks to reduce risk exposure in project execution, as well as zoning reforms and incentives such as land grants and tax breaks to lower development costs.
 
“Government incentives like infrastructure provision, tax relief on developers’ profits, and improved loan access can mitigate risk. There is also a need for government-led institutions to support project financing,” he said.
  He further recommended strengthening property regulations, enhancing property insurance certification, promoting blended finance models, ensuring feasibility studies meet International Finance Corporation (IFC) standards, and adopting robust operational strategies.
 The President of the Association of Real Estate Agents Uganda, Lazaru Mugabi, stressed that legal clarity is essential to reduce financial risk and enhance project bankability. He underscored the need for better coordination among stakeholders and professional handling of real estate activities by recognised bodies.
 
“There should be strengthening of institutions responsible for project approvals and better alignment of project structures with professional collaboration for execution,” he said, adding that laws must reduce uncertainty rather than increase it.
  A certified property valuation expert from Madagascar, Thierry Rakotovao, noted that despite progressive land reforms and housing legislation across Africa, financing remains a major constraint.
He said translating laws into bankable projects requires a deep understanding of how regulatory frameworks affect valuation models and key financial ratios, stressing that without bridging this gap, the continent’s real estate potential will remain underutilised.