Stakeholders chart course for real estate sector
Stakeholders in the real estate sector have charted a developmental course for government to follow if the needed growth in the sector is to be achieved in 2017 while positing that if the sector is to successfully address Nigeria’s over 17 million housing deficits there should be policy driven incentives for private developers in order to attain affordable housing.
According to the stakeholders, the present government’s efforts at providing about 100,000 houses per annum still leaves a deficit of 700,000 housing units, which may not be attained without active private sector participation.
Some of the policies should include rebate for approval for mass or social housing, incentives for developers by lowering the market entry and ease of doing business, improving time frames for exports and imports and zero tariffs for renewable energy.
According to the Project Director, Arctic Infrastructure, Lukman Oshodi, the near absence of mortgage for housing coupled with the development of housing types without taking care of the low income has made accessibility to housing very difficult.
Oshodi therefore called for a review of the housing types in new housing programmes, which will include the enthronement of strong virile mortgage system as well as easier land acquisition.
According to him, new housing programmes and urban renewals should not only consider the low income group because of their critical mass but should take their interests into consideration or be made a priority.
According to Director of Sustainability West Africa Lead, Ernst & Young, and member of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) Sustainability Policy Commission, Mr. Opeyemi Joseph Owolabi, the real estate sector is capable of bringing the country out of recession, while regretting that investment in government housing is speculative. He however called for mass approach to meet the housing demands.
According to him, there is need for social inclusion to capture the informal sector that provides 85 percent of the labour force.
He also stressed the need for government incentives for developers by lowering the market entry and ease of doing business, improving time frames for exports and imports and zero tariffs for renewable energy.
Similarly, Head of affordable Housing unit of Lafarge Nigeria, Mr. Aurelien Boyer, thinks the expansion of microfinance for housing is a pragmatic solution to the explosion in rural exodus.
He urged government to borrow a leaf from Lafarge’s Easy Home initiative launched three years ago in collaboration with LAPO Micro Finance Bank which has produced 25,000 beneficiaries across the south west zone.
