Minister of State for Power, Works and Housing, Suleiman Zarma Hassan, will be in attendance at the 74th annual convention and exhibition for stakeholders in the housing and construction industry beginning today to end next tomorrow at the Orange County Convention Centre, Orlando, Florida, USA.

As Nigeria is saying goodbye to recession, the currency uncertainty, falling production and double digit inflation that saw the country fall into negative growth and weighed heavily on investor confidence, are giving way to a brighter picture.

Fear of interest rate rise and Brexit is expected to either halt house price growth or result in a small below-inflation rise.

Access to improved housing through enabling conditions and slum upgrading, developed in an inclusive and integrated manner, will contribute to reducing social inequalities and strengthen drive towards sustainable urbanization in many developing economies.

Going by the improvement in the nation’s micro environment and the positive projections for 2019, the real estate sector is expected to ride on the back of these and other strides it ought to make, and put in a better performance in the year 2019.

To enhance quality of practice for effective national development and physical planning and ensure sustainable environment, town planners have been urged to discharge their duties to the public in accordance with the ethics of their profession.

A front line real estate developer and Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Propertygate Development and Investment Plc, Mr. Adetokunbo Ajayi, in this interview with Vanguard Homes & Property reviews the essence of taxation and how non-compliance with taxation rules by many operators in the real estate sector of the economy, coupled with government’s lethargy towards enforcement, have created loopholes for unfair advantage at the expense of responsible corporate citizens.

Minister of Environment, Ibrahim Jubril, has lauded the efforts and commitment by Sustainable Research and Action for Environmental Development, SRADev Nigeria, a non-governmental organisation, towards complete phase out of mercury in products to ensure a safe environment across the country.

Disturbed by incessant building collapse across the country which observers attribute to poor application of cement, stakeholders in the nation’s building/construction industry gathered at a meeting of the Technical Committee on Cement of the Standards Organisation of Nigeria, SON, to review standard for cement (NIS 444 – 1: 2014), with a view to upgrading standard of all cement grades in Nigeria.

Against the backdrop of the need to meet the huge housing deficit confronting the nation which is estimated to be about 17 million units, the Chief Executive Officer of Mannor Gates Limited, a Lagos-based budding real estate development company, Mrs. Ajoke Ogunlaja,  has revealed that bridging the huge gap should be a collective effort by both government and private developers, pointing out that government alone cannot do it.