Surveyor Urges FG To Salvage Mortgage Sector

An Estate surveyor and Valuel, Azu Unigwe, has urged the Federal Government to salvage the Mortgage Sector as to boost real estate development in the country.

Unigwe, the Managing Partner Unigwe and Co in a statement in Lagos explained that interest rates on the short-term funds being offered by mortgage institutions were too high.

He said that it was a mismatch to use short-term funds to solve the long-term financial requirements in the housing sector, adding that the real problem is that there is a disparity between the type of funds in the market and what is actually needed to drive mortgage.

According to him “Mortgage is a long term product and requires long term funding, not just the type the banks are creating from depositors funds”.

The real estate practitioner also explained that the high interest rates on loans given by banks were discouraging, pointing out that it is no longer a mortgage when you have an interest rate of about 28 per cent on short-term funds to finance a project.

He posited that one needs to bring in long-term funds that will crash the interest rates to single digit, and that such will make sense to the average man on the street.

Unigwe who is a council member of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV) said that a good and virile mortgage system was not a ‘rocket’ science, adding that everything boils down to a people’s determination to do the things right and ensure the system worked.