The mortgage industry in Nigeria bore the full weight of the effect of the unprecedented economic crisis that rocked the world in from late 2007 to 2008 spilling into 2009. It also suffered severely from the reform of the banking sector during the year.

Yobe State government is set to meet its target of building 2000 houses before the end of the first quarter of 2010.
State Commissioner for Housing, Alhaji Sidi Karasuwa who disclosed this said that over 1300 houses including two and three bedroom apartments are nearing completion in all the 17 local government areas of the state and assured that the remaining 700 would be delivered early in the year, adding that the completion of the housing units will solve accommodation problem in the state capital and other major cities.

The Defence Headquarters of the Nigerian Armed Forces has commissioned about 260 apartments for officers and men of the headquarters.

Minister of State for Works, Housing and Urban Development, Mrs Grace Ekpiwhre, has declared that the collaboration between the federal government and the private sector on housing development under the Private-Public Partnership (PPP) scheme is yielding positive results.

The nation’s recovery from the recession occasioned by the global economic crisis has begun courtesy of the banking sector reforms and the improved oil productions engendered by the amnesty program. However due to infrastructural problem, the recovery will be at a very slow pace.

Manufacturers have identified deregulation, amnesty program as well as credit squeeze in the banking sector as the main forces that would influence the economy in 2010.

In the wake of the recent Central Bank’s pseudo liberalization of dollar supply to the foreign exchange market, naira rate tumbled from over N140=$1 to today’s rate of about N130=$1 in the black market, leaving a spread of just about N2 from the official rate.

Governor Babatunde Fashola, who recently met with the French business community in Paris, France, noted that the move is aimed at strengthening the state’s drive for investment and also engage in partnership with interested foreign developers that will facilitate bridging the housing gap in the country.

Across the industry and among bankers there is palpable fear, anxiety and apprehension. “Everybody is afraid”, said Tope, a staff of First Bank Olowu branch in Ikeja. “We hear the bank wants to sack again and it might be up to 1000 this time around”, she said adding that the problem is that we don’t even know the criteria. We have been asking what the criteria are but no answer.” “I have stopped worrying”, Chinyere said , “I won’t allow retrenchment fever kill me. I still have my certificate so I can still get job elsewhere.”

The performance of primary mortgage institutions (PMIs) in the discharge of their fundamental duty of providing of mortgage loans to Nigerians has been deemed woeful.