Analysing Angola’s housing divide: Luxury apartments and a struggle for basic shelter

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

Above is the now-famous quote from the Charles Dickens novel A Tale of Two Cities. Whilst the book (and the subsequent quote) came to us in 1859 and exposes the duality of the human experience. Whenever I come across it, I can’t help but think of African inequality.

This inequality is well documented - in 2021 the World Inequality Database revealed that the wealthiest 10% of the population in African countries controls more than half of the total income generated by all the countries in Africa combined (on average) and the income earned by the bottom 50% of the African population (half the continent) is roughly 1/6th of what the top 10% earn. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” 

Inequality in Africa manifests in different ways and in Angola the real estate market brings this harsh reality to the fore. On one end of the spectrum, you have apartments priced at US$10 million - the most expensive in Africa at the time and properties that real estate agents describe as having an “exclusive price for exclusive people”. On the other hand, more than half the population (53%) earns below the poverty line (US$3.65/day) and only 48% of the country has access to electricity. All of this made us wonder - what drives Angola’s real estate market creating opportunities for such luxury and what does the rest of the market look like away from the glitz?