Keneth Legesi, CEO and chief investment officer at Ortus Africa Capital. Photo/Courtesy
In theory, housing should be simple. People need shelter. Developers build homes. Buyers buy or tenants rent. Everyone wins. But in Uganda—as in much of Africa—what sounds like a straightforward supply-meets-demand story unravels into a complex, messy saga of ‘broken systems, rising costs, and dreams deferred.’ Ask the average Ugandan about homeownership and you’re likely to hear some version of: “One day, God willing.”
It’s not just a spiritual hedge. It’s an economic one. Because for most middle- and low-income earners, buying or even renting a decent home feels like cracking a code that was never meant to be solved. So, how did we get here?
Housing problems don’t just drop from the sky. They emerge from the same forces that shape the rest of the economy—urbanisation without planning, land systems rooted in colonial chaos, underfunded infrastructure, and income levels that never quite catch up with construction costs.
Take land, for instance. In Uganda, owning it is less about title and more about navigating a spaghetti bowl of mailo, leasehold, customary, and freehold systems—each with its own legal knots and political landmines. For developers, that’s a red flag. For banks, it’s a no-fly zone.
Then there’s the money issue. Mortgage markets? Thin. Interest rates? Brutal. Building materials? Expensive. Formal jobs with bankable income? Scarce. The result: even those who work hard, save smart, and dream big are priced out.
Governments across Africa, Uganda included, have long promised affordable housing. But promises don’t build homes. The reality? Public housing projects are often underfunded, over-politicised, or abandoned midway. Even well-meaning policies like tax exemptions for construction materials rarely trickle down to the end user.
Eventually, private developers build for the few who can afford; not the many who cannot because, to them, the math simply doesn’t work for low-income housing when the margins are razor-thin and bureaucracy thick. Habitat for Humanity estimates Uganda’s housing backlog at 1.6 million units—with 210,000 in urban areas and a crushing 1.39 million in rural spaces. That’s not just a gap. That’s a gaping hole. And with the average household hovering around 4.4 people, it’s not just units we’re short on. It’s dreams.
Stability. Hope. Uganda’s 2025 population is estimated at 51,384,894 people but the national statistics house has it registered at 45.9 million as of 2024. When millions live in slums or temporary structures, the message is clear: somewhere along the line, policy forgot the people. But here’s the thing—every crisis hides an opportunity. And if we can decode the problem, we might just begin to build our way out.
Rent-to-own Keneth Legesi—CEO and chief investment officer at Ortus Africa Capital, an investment and advisory firm focusing on unlocking capital and investment opportunities in Africa—leans in with the kind of whisper that makes you pause mid-sip.
“There’s something about the housing crisis,” he says, “that no one’s talking about… but could change everything.” The fix, he says isn’t buried in billions of shillings, skyscrapers, or some silver bullet from a World Bank manual. It’s hidden in plain sight. Imagine moving into your dream home today—not as a tenant indefinitely doomed to rent, but as a future owner. No colossal deposit. No 25-year mortgage purgatory. No need to charm a bank manager into lending you half your life.
“Sounds too good to be true? It’s not,” Legesi says matter-of-factly. “It’s just a model we’ve overlooked for too long.” But hang on—how does this square with the reality we’ve already laid bare? Skyrocketing land prices, expensive cement and commercial banks that treat working-class borrowers like a risky experiment. It’s true: even those earning enough to rent comfortably often find themselves frozen out of homeownership by one cold, immovable fact—a massive upfront deposit.
Many are even now convinced that the housing market has been quietly rigged for the top 10 percent, while the other 90 percent watch from the sidelines, renting with no path to buy. And that’s where Legesi throws the challenge: “Maybe the model needs a reset.” Here’s his pitch: instead of demanding a 20 percent deposit from day one, tenants pay a smaller option premium—say five percent—which grants them the right, not the obligation, to buy the home within a one- to five-year window. And each month’s rent includes credits—sort of like a savings plan baked into your rent.
The idea is that these credits stack up, inching you closer to ownership. “If you decide to buy, great—you use the credits as your down payment,” Legesi explains. “If you walk away, part of it compensates the landlord. The rest? You can get back or reinvest. It’s flexible, fair, and real.” He is convinced that this is a model built for Africa’s financial realities: informal incomes, shaky credit histories, and lumpy cash flows. But also for its ambitions—financial inclusion, home stability, and dignity.
Bundle in protection Legesi wants to take it a step further. Imagine rent payments that also cover insurance—life, health, disability—at scale and lower cost. “You’re not just building a house,” he says.
“You’re building security.” With consistent rent payments, tenants also build a credit history—a golden ticket for future borrowing. It’s more like financial behaviour turned into a ladder, not a ceiling.
Legesi sees this working especially well for teachers, nurses, government staff—people with steady salaries and National Social Security Fund (NSSF) contributions, but no home to show for it. And that’s where the elephant walks back into the room: price. Because none of this works unless the homes themselves are affordable.
The question becomes: What kind of house can we build for $25,000 (Shs91.8 million) or less? Prefab? Modular? 3D-printed? Cement-free earth blocks? Can we standardise designs, buy materials in bulk, and deliver at scale with military precision? These are all questions because the rent-to-own model is the engine—but cheap, decent housing is the fuel.
“This can’t fly solo. Government must free up land, fix infrastructure gaps, and de-risk projects through guarantees or seed capital. This isn’t just a shiny idea—it’s a framework ready for rollout,” Legesi insists. “It works backwards from what people earn, not what they lack. No perfect credit? No problem. No big lump sum? We’ll build it over time. This model rewards discipline, builds equity, and restores dignity.”
The high climb One thing is the signs are already flashing red. Uganda’s largest pension scheme, NSSF, knows this housing mess too well. With over Shs23.5 trillion in assets under management and 2.3 million savers, the Fund has skin in the game. But making “affordable housing” a reality has proven it more complex than it sounds.
At the release of its 2023/2024 financials six months back at Kampala Serena Hotel, then-chief investment officer Gerald Paul Kasaato (now deputy managing director) offered a sobering dose of realism: “According to a National Planning Authority policy paper, median rural earnings sit around Shs168,000 monthly — about Shs220,000 in urban areas. For a house to be affordable at those income levels, it must cost between Shs14m and Shs24m.”
Now try building that on land with roads, electricity, Value Added Tax (VAT), and contractors. “It’s an extremely difficult challenge,” Kasaato noted. But the NSSF is trying — projects like Temangalo are under construction, expected to deliver 3,500 units, priced between Shs90 million to Shs400 million. That’s affordable by NSSF’s standards, but still out of reach for most. Other developers offer homes for Shs50–60 million, but with just 40 square metres of space — barely enough for Uganda’s average household of five. But there's a catch: taxation.
VAT on residential housing is exempt, meaning developers can’t reclaim input VAT, something that becomes a cost. And infrastructure alone eats up 10–20 percent of the total project cost. Kasaato’s bottom line? “The cost of a house could drop by 50 percent with interventions on land, infrastructure, and tax.”
Legesi’s model In today’s climate, renting remains the default. But what if renting came with a path to ownership — like Legesi suggests? There’s precedent. The Economist recently published a piece titled If You Can’t Find a Place to Rent, Blame the Government (March 20, 2025). The argument? Rent caps, taxes, and regulations meant to protect tenants have backfired—scaring off landlords, shrinking supply, and pushing rents higher.
Meanwhile, high interest rates freeze home buying. If we go by Legesi’s idea, you realise that there is a possible problem of people failing to keep up with payments. Legesi says: “The rent-to-own agreement would clearly spell out the terms: the price formula, option period, rent credit breakdown, and what happens if you default.”
Valuation? Can be fixed from the start. Or indexed to inflation. Or based on future market value—as long as it's pre-agreed because transparency is key. “This is more than an idea,” he tells me. “It’s a framework ready to be tested — a model that works backwards from people’s income, not forwards from impossible expectations.”
The Economist’s piece does note that “the solution that we have is to build more homes.” The idea is if you can’t rent, can’t buy, and can’t afford to dream of either — maybe it’s not your landlord. Maybe it’s the system.
Government’s involvement.
This can’t fly solo. Government must free up land, fix infrastructure gaps, and de-risk projects through guarantees or seed capital. This isn’t just a shiny idea—it’s a framework ready for rollout. It works backwards from what people earn, not what they lack. No perfect credit? No problem. No big lump sum? We’ll build it over time. This model rewards discipline, builds equity, and restores dignity,”
Keneth Legesi, CEO and chief investment officer at Ortus Africa Capital.
