The knowledge of the year coming to a close is always a pleasant, humbling surprise that leaves us pumped and excited about the future.  This year has culminated the making of an amazing five-year journey that we’re super proud and excited about; so much so we can’t keep it to ourselves.

With the new year peeking over the horizon, it is time to recap our year, to highlight and reflect on the most important, impactful memories and lessons that will lead us into a new and prosperous 2019.

Before we get into it, know that, none of this would be possible without the support, dedication and respect of the meqasa team, real estate industry players, our backers, everyone rooting for us and most importantly, you!

Let’s get into it.

The State of Housing in Accra Infographic

Are you looking for property to rent or buy in Accra or even sell? It helps to know where to find available real estate and to have a fair idea of the costs involved in different parts of the city.

We released an infographic this year that gave an overview of the housing sector in Accra, the locus of real estate development in Ghana, comparing trends in 2016 and 2017. The infographic was based on data gathered from online search queries on meqasa.com. It looked at different indicators such as the average cost of rent and land in different parts of the city. It also highlighted the value of new developments – a staggering $340 million – on meqasa.com alone. This signals big investment opportunities in the residential real estate market in Ghana investors should take advantage of.  Learn more about this infographic here.

Meqasa Property Expo

2018 marked a year since our maiden housing fair In 2017 dubbed the Dream Homes Expo. The success and lessons of that expo opened the doors to a bigger and better housing fair this year. Renamed the Meqasa Property Expo, the housing fair brought together top real estate players – developers, agents and suppliers of home solutions – at the Aviation Social Centre for three-days of property discounts, showcases, networks and power packed housing seminars.  The annual expo saw the likes of The Greens, Fortune City, Paradise Estate, Electroland, Ozone, Casanni Homes, Trellidoor, MTN and more exhibit their properties and resourceful home solutions. The expo will come around again early next year and will be followed by another towards the end of the year. See photos and read about the successful Meqasa Property Expo.

Subscribe to our weekly Dream Homes Newsletter for updates on our next expo along with fantastic property deals and much more.

Rebrand & Anniversary

A fresh coat of paint not only breathes new life and energy onto anything it is applied on; it also signals great things to come. If you haven’t noticed yet, we’re sporting a brand new look – our logo and brand colours have changed.

Sometime during the second half of the year, we switched up our look to match our new energy and keep up with the times. Curious about what the new look and colours mean? We wrote extensively about our rebrand here. While you’re at it, you can read up on the evolution of our logos over the years too to see how far we’ve come.

The rebrand wasn’t isolated. 

5 years ago, three young motivated and success driven men at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology had an awesome idea – to democratize the process of renting, buying and selling property in Ghana. In 2018, Kelvin Nyame, Kofi Amuasi and Rashad Seini are the proud fathers of Ghana’s number one property website!

We marked our 5th anniversary with a computer donation drive to Hope City School at TK. This was made possible with support from CBC Properties, Akka Kappa, our own coffers and the general public.  We also threw a small, fun-packed party with staff and friends. We also put together a video detailing the journey so far.

Watch it below.

Mobile Apps

In 2018, we launched our mobile apps; one for seekers and the other for agents. This coincided with our rebrand adding more oomph to that fresh energy we spoke about earlier.

These two apps, several years in the making have changed the way people interact with meqasa.com. Seekers can now easily access meqasa.com via the Seeker app which greatly extends the functionality of the website. It’s easier and faster now to find property, save it and contact property owners to make enquiries. The app is available on both Android and iOS. Download the Android and iOS apps today!

Agents too can now manage their listings easily on the go. No need to sit behind a computer to do simple things such as following up on leads or listing properties. The meqasa Agents App is a powerful office right in the pockets of Agents.

Partnerships & Sponsorships

If you concluded 2018 was our year of partnering with Ghanaian media outlets and businesses, you wouldn’t be too off the mark. This year saw us cement several solid partnerships and sponsorships with key players across media, advertising, ancillary home vendors and home financing.  We partnered with MyJoyOnline and Ghana Web to host our listings on their platform. This means now, seekers can find the property of their dreams on their favourite news portals. Convenience just got a new whole new meaning – and address.

Have you been on our blog yet? It’s overflowing with great resources on real estate, from industry trends to powerful tips and more. We understand you won’t always be online and might want to disconnect from technology sometimes. But what if you still want to read about real estate? Our healthy partnership with the Business and Financial Times has you covered. You can find a property corner within the B&FT newspaper bringing you a weekly dose of helpful real estate tips and advice, weekly.

Moving away from the media, ddp Outdoor Limited, Electroland and Ozone Media have been such sporty partners who’ve supported us during the Meqasa Property Expo as well the GHL Bank Housing Fair which we supported as online media partners.

These partnerships have taught us the value of working together and driven home, stronger than before, the mantra that two heads are better than one.

Launch of Multiple Listings Service and GAR

Meqasa together with the recently assembled Ghana Association of Realtors launched Ghana’s first Multiple Listings Service (MLS). The MLS will help real estate brokers better manage their properties. It will also help seekers in their hunt for property and greatly reduce instances of fraud.

According to our CEO, Kelvin Nyame, “the Multiple Listing Service is a one-stop shop for access to information for GAR members (brokers and agents) to make it easy for them to transact business, share information and also share properties with other agents. The MLS is a database where real estate agents and brokers have access to all listed properties on one platform. This means agents can market one another’s property in an effort to close more deals and share the commission among themselves”.

The technology powering the MLS will be developed by meqasa.com and will be a game changer for real estate in Ghana.

Other Highlights

The seminars at all our property expos are a particular hit with the public who have a voracious appetite for information about real estate in Ghana. Emmanuel Mate-Kole and his specialization – land – is a favourite, appearing at both expos this year. Eager to share his wealth of information, Emmanuel has contributed twice to our blog and will likely continue into next year. Having a practising lawyer contribute info on the topics he’s an expert on is great news for all of us. Read Emmanuel Mate-Kole’s posts here.

We were also nominated at the Ghana Blogging Awards this year for the best organizational blog. While we didn’t win, it is nice to know some special people who love our content had us in mind and entered us into the awards. We only found out we were nominated while someone from our team was at the awards. Imagine our pleasant surprise. 🙂

In 2019, meqasa.com will come even stronger than before, adopting the latest technologies to enhance the property search experience for seekers, coupled with cosmic marketing that will generate rock-solid leads for our cherished clients.

We’re excited to enter the new year with you, the people who make what we do matter. Join us uphold our values of respect, commitment and always daring to be different in 2019 and beyond.

With ❤️ from everyone at meQasa.com.