Advance rent mobilisation strategies of graduate renters in Ghana: a submarket of the private rental housing market.
View / Open Files
Publication Date
2021-12-30Journal Title
J Hous Built Environ
ISSN
1566-4910
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Pages
1-21
Language
eng
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Asante, L. A., Ehwi, R. J., & Gavu, E. K. (2021). Advance rent mobilisation strategies of graduate renters in Ghana: a submarket of the private rental housing market.. J Hous Built Environ, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-021-09926-w
Abstract
The practice of advance rent, where landlords ask renters to pay a lump-sum rent covering 2 or more years, is gaining scholarly and political attention in Africa. Nevertheless, there is limited empirical research investigating how renters mobilize funds to meet this financial commitment. Existing literature suggests that renters, irrespective of their educational level, face difficulties in paying advance rent, hence compelling them to rely mainly on their bonding (family and friends) and bridging (employers and financial institutions) social capital to pay advance rent. Drawing on rational choice and social capital theories coupled with data from a novel (graduate) sub-market of Ghana's rental housing market, this article finds that personal savings remain the most rational current and future source of funding options graduate renters draw upon to pay advance rent, albeit some still drawing on their social capital. The findings demonstrate that graduate renters do not use bonding social capital in their future mobilization strategies after they have drawn on the same in previous years, although they continue to rely on their bridging social capital and other strategies to mobilize funds for advance rent. The study suggests the need to rethink rational choice and social capital theories to incorporate inter-temporal dynamics among different social groups and to traverse the current binary conception of the rental housing market in Ghana to consider different sub-markets and how they respond to existing challenges in the housing sector.
Keywords
Ghana, Social Capital, Advance Rent, Mobilization Strategies, Private Rental Housing, Graduate Renters
Identifiers
34980947, PMC8717301
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10901-021-09926-w
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/333677
Statistics
Total file downloads (since January 2020). For more information on metrics see the
IRUS guide.
Recommended or similar items
The current recommendation prototype on the Apollo Repository will be turned off on 03 February 2023. Although the pilot has been fruitful for both parties, the service provider IKVA is focusing on horizon scanning products and so the recommender service can no longer be supported. We recognise the importance of recommender services in supporting research discovery and are evaluating offerings from other service providers. If you would like to offer feedback on this decision please contact us on: support@repository.cam.ac.uk