Today I’m going to talk to you about things you need to know if you’re looking for housing in Ivory Coast, more specifically in Abidjan. Things that surprised me, as a person who moved back to Ivory Coast.
If you’re subscribed to my Youtube channel, you saw what you can get in Abidjan for a specific price range ($800-$1300), house-wise.
We visited a lot of places and we finally picked one of the places, a cute little 3-bedroom, 3-bath house in a beautiful neighborhood in Cocody.
We finally moved in and I wanna share with you all the process of renting a place in Abidjan. So let’s go.
1. Housing in Ivory Coast: The real estate market is a seller’s market
The first thing that surprised me was that there are not a lot of houses available for the number of people looking for houses.
It’s basically a seller’s market or a landlord’s market for people renting like me. Some places are still being built and by the time they’re done, they are already rented out.
For other places, as soon as they are on the market, they are rented out. By the time you see an ad on the Internet, it usually means the place has been rented for weeks already.
If you wait a little too long, you can lose the house that you want. So you kind of have to be very efficient in your search. That said, because it’s a seller market, there are a lot of scams.
2. There are a lot of Scams in the Housing Market in Ivory Coast
I kind of knew that before, but I didn’t really realize the extent of it.
For example, I know someone who gave all their deposit money to a person they thought was connected to the landlord. And the person just disappeared, with their money. To this day, they’re still waiting for their money back.
And apparently, these types of scams are very common. People rent or sell places that are not theirs. Or they sell them twice or rent them to different people…
So you have to be very careful about who you give your money to because there are a lot of scammers.
When you are interested in a place, before you hand your money for the deposit to whoever put you in contact with the place, you have to make sure that, they’re actually connected to the landlord. That leads me to my third point.
3. You may not work with a licensed real estate agent when looking for housing in Ivory Coast
In my experience, I haven’t seen a lot of licensed agencies. We visited a lot of houses through people who heard of a house to rent. These middlemen are called “demarcheurs” here.
These people build their businesses on that. They work with landlords or with agencies, but they’re not really part of an agency. So they hear of houses that are available. Then, they show them to the people in their network.
A lot of time, they’ll ask you for a certain fee to show you. It’s usually not a lot, maybe 5,000 FCFA.
The way they really make their money is through the agency fee you pay if you pick a house. They’ll get a chunk of that agency fee.
There are a lot of middlemen like that. Some of them are legit. They really work with the landlord or a real estate agency. But some of those guys are not legit. They’re trying to make a quick buck. So again you have to be careful.
4. To get Housing in Ivory Coast, you will look at many Places in Horrible Conditions
That’s another thing that shocked me during our search for a house to live in Abidjan: Most of the places we saw were in horrible conditions.
When we were still in the US, we used to search on real estate websites to learn about housing in Ivory Coast. We wanted to see what types of rentals were available to live in Abidjan. Most pictures on housing websites were not great. But things looked decent and clean-ish.
But once we came here and started to look for a place, we were shocked by the state of disarray of some of the houses we saw. And what I mean by that was they were in horrible, unsafe conditions.
We saw houses that were filthy, houses with black mold. Some houses we visited had trash all over them. Toilets were often disgusting. Some of those places looked like health hazards
And most of the time, people would say “The house is being renovated”. Or “the landlord is waiting for someone to rent so they can use the deposit money to renovate the house”.
It felt like taking a gamble. Is the landlord really going to renovate the house as they’re supposed to? Or are they just going to do a quick fix that’s not up to our standards?
One way to get around that is to only visit new constructions. They are usually nicer, but they may be more expensive.
As for us, we could get over the condition of some of the places. So we ended up picking a house that was already clean, fixed up and looked good.
5. To get Housing in Ivory Coast, you Have to Give Five Months of Rent in Advance
The Ivoirian law requires you to give five months of rent as a deposit in advance.
So the landlord or real estate agency cannot ask you for more than five months of rent.
What are the five months of rent for?
- Two months are the actual deposit that you’re supposed to get back at the end of your lease.
- Two months are two months of rent that you pay in advance.
- There’s one month of agency fees. Whether or not you work with an agency, which was another surprising thing, you will still have to pay that agency fee. And if there is no agency, the person who shows you the house is the person who will get that fee.
6. You may have to Pay Additional Fees if your Rent is Above a Certain Amount
The tax department registration fee
If your rent is over 500,000 FCFA per month, you may be required to pay an additional fee.
The reason for this is that when rent is more than 500,000 FCFA per month, the lease has to be registered with, the tax department (Les Impots) in Ivory Coast. That registration fee is 2.5% of your annual rent.
Deposit for utilities
Another thing that you also may have to pay is the deposit for the utilities — the water company and the electricity company.
If you work with an agency they may ask you to pay, a utility deposit in case you don’t pay off all your bill when you move out. If everything is good, by the end of your lease, you will get that deposit back.
You have to plan for all of this in your budget to live in Abidjan.
7. Getting Utilities can be a Complicated Task when Living in Abidjan
The last thing I wanted to share with you about housing in Ivory Coast was the process of getting your water and electricity turned on.
Sometimes it can take a while for the utility companies to reactivate the water and electricity in your house. The process can be long.
You have to plan for it when you move. In our case, the water company took the water meter when the previous renter came.
We had to wait for them to come to reinstall the meter, before we could move in the house. It was a whole process and additional fees.
The electricity was still there. So it was just a matter of just transferring the bill to our name.
8. Paperwork required to get housing in Ivory Coast
Proof of employment
The first thing you need to find housing in Abidjan is proof of employment.
You have to show that you can pay for the house you are going to rent. So landlords ask for proof of employment or an employment contract. They want something that shows that you have a regular income and that you can therefore you can afford housing in Ivory Coast.
Your bank account information
The second thing we ask for is a “relevé d’identité bancaire” or RIB. The RIB is a statement of banking identity. It’s a piece of paper with your banking information on it.
When they asked us that, it made us pause a little bit. We were wondering why they wanted to have access to our banking information. Coming from the United States, right away, we thought of identity thieves.
But apparently, it is very common for landlords here to ask for banking information. They use it in case a person doesn’t pay their rent. If that happens, they sue the renter. And with the court decision and the renter’s banking information, they can get their money back.
So the RIB isn’t something the landlord can just use like that to take your money. They need a court decision for that.
A pay stub or proof of income
The third thing we ask for is a pay stub or proof of income. Once again, like the employment contract, it’s to show that you can pay the rent on a regular basis.
Your salary should be three times the amount of rent.
A person to co-sign
And if your income is not sufficient, you may have to ask someone to co-sign the lease for you. Basically, it’s someone who will vouch for you, if you don’t pay the rent.
The person may have more income than you. Or maybe your combined incomes reassure the landlord.
That’s it! I’m not a real estate person. But I wanted to share this information with you because I thought it would be useful for someone looking for housing in Ivory Coast.
I wish I knew all those things when we were planning our move to Abidjan. So there you have it!
Let me know how it is in the city you live in. What surprised you? Is the real estate market similar to or different from the one in Abdjan? Tell me everything by sending me an email to backtotheotherland@gmail.com or a message on IG @backtotheotherland
