The impact of traditional house type on rental values in Kinondoni municipality D'Salaam Tanzania

Authors

• Samwel Alananga-Sanga

Abstract

Traditional housing types has for a long time been recognised as the cheapest way to provide rental housing in cities of the global south. Although the architectural design may be cheaper to construct than modern ones, the ultimate rent paid by tenant may not necessarily be lower given the multiplicity of factors that affects rent. This study examines the effects of traditional Swahili houses on rent given the neighbourhood and individual characteristics of both tenants and owners in Kinondoni municipality in D’ salaam Tanzania. The data were collected using questionnaires which were administered to 2,339 owners and 2,113 tenants between February and June 2014. The survey solicited data on imputed rent from owners and actual rent paid by tenants and included an assessment of households, housing and neighbourhood attributes. Using the share of Swahili houses in administrative wards as a criterion for housing clusters, an LME model was then implemented to identify significant determinants of rent-per-bedroom. The results suggest that predominantly traditional Swahili-house type wards are closer to the CBD where rent-per-bedroom tend to be higher in line with both higher income and house size while wards with lower proportions of Swahili houses predominates in the outskirt where rent-per-bedroom is lower in line with both income and size of houses. Thus, although traditional Swahili houses can easily be supplied by self-builders, rent in those houses is not necessarily lower unless the houses are located far away from the city centre. These findings provide evidence on a significant departure of rental values from construction cost in self-built housing in developing countries. It is concluded that self-built traditional houses may not necessarily provide cheaper rental housing despite having all the attributes of being low cost housing from the owners’ point of view.