South Africa will need 125 years to overcome housing shortage

At current housing construction rates, South Africa will need at least 125 years to cover its existing shortage of 3 million homes.

Report informs that Hennie Botes, managing director of South African construction company Moladi Development, said this at the panel session titled "Developer Coalition for the Promotion of Productive Partnerships in the Global South, and Preliminary Presentation of the CAHF Housing Finance Yearbook 2025/2026" held as part of the 13th World Urban Forum (WUF13) in Baku.

"The Department of Human Settlements is building only 24,000 units a year, with a budget of 33 billion rand, while in 1998 the country built up to 250,000 homes annually. Modular formwork technology could be a way out of the current situation, as it makes it possible to build one house a day with the involvement of the local population, without attracting skilled labor. With a thousand molds, it would be possible to build a thousand homes daily," Botes stressed.