*Most Houses in Nigeria are Overpriced* , Says Property Crew MD

_ThisDay_
Christiana Kanu

Managing Director of Property Crew believes that majority of the houses in Nigeria are quite overpriced. She tells Bennett Oghifo that houses in major urban cities of Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt are put up at outrageous prices and thereby making it almost impossible for even the middle-income earners to access.

One of the reasons for the high cost of housing is majorly the continuous price increase in building materials. I think basically to solve this problem, the government make some sort of reforms in the real estate sector where materials should be sourced and produced (internally) locally thereby reducing the cost of construction.

Inaccessibility to Project Funding and Mortgage Loans: It is no news that it has become increasingly difficult to access funds for projects in Nigeria especially for real estate development. This has made it difficult for private developers to fund their projects as the government alone cannot handle the housing deficits prevalent in Nigeria and to bridge this gap, there should be easy access for real estate development project fund.

Also, there should be easy access to mortgage to enable more Nigerians access funds to buy the house of their dreams.

*Devaluation of the Naira:*
The continuous fall in naira is also a major challenge in housing. This is because the Nigerian construction industry depends mostly on the importation of raw materials and equipment used for construction. With unstable naira, the cost of purchasing these raw materials increases and so the market bears the brunt. We need to produce materials locally so that properties would be more affordable and also the economy would be boosted.

*Land Registration/ Building Approval Processes and Cost:*

The structural process of registering properties in Nigeria is one of the main challenges of housing in Nigeria. Real estate agents, developers, and lawyers can relate to this challenge. The Land registration process in Nigeria is frustrating. It can last as long as 6 months to 2 years with elongated procedures costing up to about 20.8% of the value of the property same applies to the building approval processes. More often than not, you may have to spend more than the cash budgeted for your application to move from one office to the next. This automatically disrupts business plans, and highly discourage investors. It also affects development and construction thereby resulting in overpriced houses that the average Nigerian citizen can’t afford, making this yet another major challenge in housing and the real estate sector.

*Omo – onile* :

Even though the Lagos state government has tried to clamp down the activities of the omo-onile also known as land grabbers, through the properties protection law and by issuing a 21- year jail term to any one of them caught, they are still a major challenge to housing in Nigeria as they still cause havoc because their operations and fraudulent activity has not been fully curbed. These people have driven away landowners and overtaken lands that do not belong to them, they specialize in selling lands to more than one person especially yet to be developed lands increasing land controversies and conflicts in Nigeria. All of these scares potential investors away and slows the progress of society.

To solve this problem, the government should put their feet down and set uniform laws in place, in every part of Nigeria to totally eradicate the terrible activities of omo-onile in Nigeria.

*Lack of Competent Builders/ Contractors:*

Many builders and contractors used are inexperienced, they mostly use bad materials to make extra money for themselves. The cases of collapsed buildings in Nigeria in recent times is often as a result of developers that failed to adhere to building construction standards. Adequate supervision of workmen can reduce these cases. Other problems include and are not limited to crumbling infrastructure, high taxation, lack of management, weather related risks e.t.c. Finally, all of these issues listed are major hindrances to the most transformative sector of the economy-Housing, if these issues above are not addressed, it would be difficult for investors both foreign or indigenous to invest.

True

Especially Lagos state, house � of 10m they will call it 50m and people will still buy it