New Housing Vacancy in Yaoundé and Douala: a Case of Real Estate Market Failure in the Cameroonian Context?

Abstract

Since the late 2000s, the Cameroonian state is carrying out reforms that give a much larger role to private market players in the property development sector - a process that we identify as a neoliberalization of public housing policies. These new private players are contributing to the creation of a supply of new housing that is supposed to compensate for the deficit observed, in particular, in the cities of Yaoundé and Douala. However, while demand is high, the vacancy rate within this new housing stock is very high. As such vacancy phenomenon is often explained as a result of financialization, we argue that it is a consequence of the hybridity of neoliberalization policies with the neopatrimonial and authoritarian Cameroonian context. Drawing on data from my research fields, this presentation will examine the factors behind the unsuitability of this housing supply. On the fringe of the financialization of urban production, the development of the Cameroonian real estate market is hampered by the low level of banking and available capital. Real estate developers therefore rely, on the one hand, on government channels and, on the other, on the mobilization of their own capital - land, economic and social. In order to secure these personal investments and guarantee a maximum rate of profit, market players specialize in a segment of the market known as "high standing". But this market is all the more saturated for being so small, despite the political claims for emergence. As a result, this new housing production chain in Yaoundé and Douala is proving inadequate to meet demand.