The provision of real property rights through titling and informal settlements upgrading is widely imagined to have considerable direct and indirect effects on urban poverty. The evidence for such effects is, however, scarce, partial rather than holistic, and subject to methodological difficulties. This thesis investigates the effects of real property rights through two case-studies: the subsidized construction of privately-titled housing for poor people in Khayelitsha, Cape Town, and the private titling of public rental housing in Matero, Lusaka. It examines nine hypotheses drawn from theories about the effects of property rights but goes beyond to strengthen this literature by drawing on another ten hypotheses from theories of homeownership and a categorisation of all hypotheses into economic, human and social capital effects using the asset-based approach.