Staff Writer 
Africa Summit 2026
Mike E. Juru
IN developed economies, a policymaker wanting to know the value of the nation’s property stock can pull a file. They have a house price index, a commercial yield benchmark, a transaction database updated regularly. Asking the same question in Zimbabwe, the answer will be as clear as mud.
That is not a technical footnote. It is a governance challenge. And at the centre of it is valuation.
Real estate is likely the single largest store of private and public wealth in Zimbabwe. Conservative estimates put the value of formal urban property alone at more than $30 billion. It collateralises bank lending, underpins insurance, contributes to the fiscus, determines council rates, and features on the balance sheets of listed companies, and pension funds. Yet we are making decisions about this $30 billion asset class with almost no consolidated data from the thousands of valuations. With no property index, no public transaction register, the result is policy made in a data vacuum. Without accurate valuations, policy could fly blind.
A valuer’s role is widely misunderstood. To many, it is the person who “prices a house” before a bank approves a loan. That is true, but incomplete. Under the Valuers Act and the International Valuation Standards 2025, a registered valuer provides an independent, evidence-based opinion of value. That independence is the point. The valuer is not an estate agent chasing a commission, nor a borrower trying to maximise a loan. The job is to anchor a price in fact: market evidence, income potential, replacement cost. A valuer is a public interest professional whose job is not to inflate or deflate a price to suit a client. That independence is what makes valuation a regulatory tool, not just a commercial service.
That anchor is what allows other systems to function. Banks use it to set loan-to-value ratios. Insurers use it to set cover. Councils use it for rating. Treasury uses it for capital gains and estate duty calculations. Courts use it for expropriation and matrimonial disputes. Investors use it to decide whether to commit capital.
When that anchor is weak, everything built on top of it drifts.
Three ways bad data distort policy. Firstly, fiscal policy. Local authorities across Zimbabwe are under pressure to fund services. Most rely on property rates. But without a credible, regularly updated valuation roll, rates are set by negotiation, history, or politics rather than market value. The result is under-recovery of revenue in some areas and unfair burdens in others. Zimra faces the same problem with capital gains and transfer pricing. You cannot tax what you cannot measure.
Secondly, monetary and financial stability. Over time, property has become Zimbabwe’s default hedge against currency volatility. Prices, quoted in US dollars, have risen sharply while nominal wages have lagged. Banks have responded by lending against property, but they are doing so with limited market evidence. In the absence of a property index, there is no way to track whether a boom is underway, whether valuations are diverging from fundamentals, or whether systemic risk is building in the mortgage book. The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the banking sector could, by necessity, be flying blind.
Third, public accountability and transparency. The State is one of the largest property owners. Schools, clinics, office blocks, and land. Few of these assets are revalued regularly despite IPSAS prescription. We do not know their current worth, their depreciation, or whether they are being used productively. At the same time, the absence of a public transaction register means speculation thrives. The same 1,000 sqm stand in Harare can be quoted at three different prices in a week, with no way for a citizen, journalist, or regulator to test which is real.
This is not just a Zimbabwe problem, but the gap is wider here because other data systems are thin. In South Africa, the IPD index gives investors a quarterly view. In Kenya, the Central Bank publishes a house price index. Even Zambia is moving toward a digital cadastre linked to valuations. Zimbabwe has valuers producing thousands of reports each year, but the data dies in a filing cabinet.
Zimbabwe has roughly 200 registered valuers, regulated by the Valuers Council of Zimbabwe. To remain in good standing they must complete 20 hours of CPD annually and comply with IVS. That is a professional standard comparable to global best practice.
The issue is not competence. Valuers produce the raw material of a property market every day, but there is no mechanism to aggregate it. Banks keep their own panels. Councils keep their own rolls. The Deeds Office records transactions but not values. The Valuer General’s office has a mandate but limited resources and no statutory power to compel data sharing.
The consequence is duplication, inconsistency, and a market that prices on anecdote.
What is needed is a statutory Zimbabwe Property Index, compiled and published regularly. It would not require inventing data. It would require connecting data that already exists. The model is straightforward:
l Mandate data sharing. Banks, insurers, and valuers submit anonymised valuation data to a central body. Deeds and ZIMRA share transaction data.
l Independent governance. House the index within the Valuation General’s office, with technical input from Valuers Council of Zimbabwe, ZimStats, and the universities. Publish methodology publicly.
l Segment the market. Residential by suburb and type. Commercial by use and grade. Agricultural by region. This allows policy to be targeted, not blunt.
l Use it. For rate-setting, for monetary policy analysis, for investor reporting, and for public information. Over time, it becomes the basis for REITs, mortgage-backed securities, and pension fund benchmarks.
The cost is modest. The benefit is a market that can be seen, measured, and managed.
There are objections, of course. Privacy, capacity, resistance from those who benefit from opacity. But these are surmountable. Kenya built its index with less. Rwanda digitised its land registry in under a decade.
An index alone may not be enough. It must be built on valuations that are independent. That means enforcing the ethical rules that separate valuation from sales. It means protecting valuers from commercial pressure and undue influence.
It also means public education. Too often, “valuation” is confused with “estate agency”. The public needs to understand why a $50 report from an unregistered person will be rejected by a bank, and why that is a good thing. It protects the borrower, the lender, and the system and brings confidence to the ecosystem.
Zimbabwe is at an inflection point. Diaspora investment is rising. The government is encouraging REITs and capital markets development. Pension funds are looking for long-term assets. All of this requires one thing: confidence in price.
You cannot have confidence without measurement. You cannot have measurement without valuation. And you cannot have credible valuation without data, standards, and transparency.
For too long we have treated valuation as a private service for banks and lawyers. It is not. It is public infrastructure, as essential to a functioning economy as roads or electricity.
Without accurate valuations, we will continue to set tax rates by guesswork, to regulate banks without knowing their exposures, and to debate housing policy without knowing what houses cost.
Not to be left out, valuers must also be seen for what they are: guardians of market integrity. That requires, strict competence-based registration, enforceable CPD, disciplining misconduct, and protecting independence from commercial pressure.
If we are serious about transparency in the real estate sector and extending into the overall economy, we must start by valuing it properly. Policy made without data is not policy. It is hope. And in a $30 billion market, hope is not a strategy.
l Dr Juru is the current chairman of the Valuers Council of Zimbabwe.
