By: Dwight Links
The Windhoek and Swakopmund localities combined for 325 approved projects for July 2026, with a combined total project value of N$300.1 million.
The data comes from the latest building statistics report from Simonis Storm.
According to Almandro Jansen, economist for the firm, the local building sector is rebounding.
“The sector has maintained its recovery trajectory into July 2026 with these combined plan approvals,” Jansen explained.
Property sales and prices are influenced by the repo rate. The recent announcement from Bank of Namibia to maintain the rate at 6.75% still stifles household appetite for new credit, the report states.
“Private sector credit extensions to households continue to reflect affordability headwinds that constrain average project sizes,” the report indicates.
Jansen explains that the July 2026 performance of the two local authorities shows that these are the second-best performance indicators for the year.
“Within this environment, July’s approval volumes represent the second-highest monthly reading for 2026 for Windhoek, underscoring that the volume recovery is durable even as average values remain compressed relative to the distorted 2025 base,” Jansen added on the year-to-year comparison for the same period.
Windhoek recorded 244 building plans that were approved in July 2026, which was a 23.9% month-on-month increase from the 197 approvals for June this year.
“This also shows that the performance in Windhoek was 6.5% below the 261 approvals of July 2025,” the report shows.
The value of the plans is N$206.4 million, which Simonis Storm says is up by 4.3% from the N$197.8 million of June this year.
It is also higher than the 2025 year-on-year indicator of N$178.2 million for the same month.
On the coastal side, Swakopmund recorded 81 approved building plans last month.
It was a 3.8% month-on-month increase from the 78 approvals in June, but it was an 18.2% year-on-year decrease from the 99 in July 2025, the report highlights.
According to the analysis the approval value rose to N$93.8 million, which was an increase of 33.3% in the month-on-month indicators from the N$70.3 million of June.
The Swakopmund trend was also lower by 6.5% from the July 2025 total, which was valued at N$100.2 million, Simonis says.
Jansen illustrated that the two urban centers provided strong figures that were positive indications for the construction industry.
“Taken together, July 2026 extended the sector’s month-on-month recovery, with Windhoek approval volumes rising by 23.9% and values up 4.3%. While Swakopmund posted a 3.8% volume gain and a 33.3% improvement in approval values,” he added.
Year-to-date, Swakopmund continues to outpace Windhoek in both volume growth – which is at 15.1% rate against the 4.3% increase of the capital – and value growth,” Jansen said.
According to Simonis Storm, the first seven months of this year have pointed to a recovery trend for the building sector, but the sector still has constrained value expansion.
This is because the rate of plan approvals is running ahead for this year alone, but the average values are lower per project, which is an indicator they claim is based on affordability-driven scenarios.
