An expert in the housing sector, Mr Timothy Nubi, says housing finance has not developed enough to drive housing delivery in the country.

Nubi, National Coordinator of Ideal Habitat Cooperative Housing Initiatives said in Lagos on Friday that this situation had made many residents in urban areas to live in dehumanising environment.

“Those that have access to average housing do so at abnormal costs; rents in major cities of Nigeria constitute about 60 per cent of an average worker’s disposable income,” he said. Nubi said that the country could only meet about 4.2 per cent of the housing demand in a year in spite of the fact that the Federal Government could easily address factors limiting housing delivery.

“It should be acknowledged that private sector developers account for 83 per cent of urban housing. Unfortunately, the private sector is saddled with numerous problems which make supply to always fall far short of demand.

Of these, the most limiting is finance. Various studies have, at different times, listed finance as part of the housing problems, but they ranked land and building materials higher,” he said.

Nubi said that inadequate information and working knowledge on housing finance were still major problems today. He said another major problem affecting housing finance was high interest rates that had made it difficult for people to get mortgage loans.