Business
Nigeria Needs Adequate Housing Data –Valuer
Facts have emerged that Nigeria lacks adequate housing data and would require about N53 trillion to fill her housing deficit.
An Estate valuer, Ken Chime, who made the observation in Port Harcourt, during an interview with The Tide on Tuesday noted that the specific housing demands were not certain due to various inadequacies.
According to him,” The statistics if calculated rightly reflects a huge housing demand gap .
The effects of this is that there is an increase in crime rate due to the emergence of squatter camps, leading to a decrease in Gross Domestic Product and low capacity for internally generated revenue from land use charges. Housing shortage has also created increase in rental rates as more people are in demand for few houses,” he stated.
Chime lamented that housing challenges had led to the increase in land conflicts and that most of the suggestions that have come out from housing committees, seminars and ministerial meetings have not been practicable, also that people don’t trust the government.
“Alternative materials have not been made available even as the efforts of various material research centres have not shown effect. Respective governments’ Public private partnership has been dicey and cumbersome with lots of bureaucratic bottlenecks bedeviling the process.
Tenancy law has also been a challenge to housing delivery although some parts have been helping,” he said.
The opportunities of mortgage financing according to chime, lies in the creation of job-opportunities for Nigeria through increase development of property and patronage of mortgage institutions, inclusion of mortgage firms in the stock exchange which would make the market more mature.
Chime who runs a consulting firm, Chime and partners Estate valuers, stressed that Mortgage financing is crucial to housing delivery in the nation at large.