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78 percent of residents planning own homes in next four years
By Ada Anioji
The majority of Abuja residents are very well disposed towards the rent-to-own housing model, a new survey conducted by the Roland Igbinoba Real Foundation for Housing and Urban Development, RIRFHUD has disclosed.
This is even as a massive 78 per cent of those polled say that they are currently taking positions in line with their desire to own their personal homes within the next 4 years.
However, when the Abuja residents’ data is disaggregated by Socio-economic (SEC) profile, it also comes across that this willingness to accept rent-to-own housing is not very popular with the upper economic segments of the population (C1, AB) as there are many here who are unwilling to accept rent-to-own housing.
Indeed, among this upper-class population segment, virtually everyone surveyed (100 per cent) is unwilling to accept the policy. Analysts say that this is understandable that given that members of the upper class are much likely to find the resources to make instant payments to acquire their own houses.
In the opposite direction however, the lower class and upper middle class [E(72%), D(82%), C2(89%)] showed a more subdued level of willingness to accept the policy. Accordingly then, the clamour therefore for Abuja residents is for the FCT administration to emulate the rent-to-own-policy already initiated by the Lagos State Government as a way of growing the housing stock and improving upon the number of citizens who live in their own homes.
Meanwhile, the Roland Igbinoba Real Foundation for Housing and Urban Development (RIRFHUD) presented its “State of the Abuja Housing Market Report 2017” on Monday at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.
The report is the first of its kind housing market report for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). A research compendium that took the better part of four years to put together, the event brought together chief executives from the private sector, international players, development partners and senior government officials. Also at the event were stakeholders in the Nigerian economy and top service providers from the real estate industry in the country.
According to the promoters, the report has helped in dimensioning the housing market in the FCT, in order to address the demand, supply and affordability gap currently experienced in the market. Furthermore, the report provides information that will help in bridging the gap created by dearth of reliable data and in-depth information in the ever increasingly complex demand for well-structured solutions in today’s global real estate market place.
Currently, Abuja is presently experiencing a remarkable rate of urbanization due to urban pull with an annual population growth rate estimated at 10per cent making it one of the fastest growing markets for residential real estate and construction development. With the associated problems of urbanization and high level of population growth, rapidly growing middle class, housing deficit, high cost of housing rentals, it is therefore imperative to properly dimension the housing market in order to address the demand, supply and affordability gap currently experienced in the market.
The report contains a house price index (Roland Igbinoba House Price Index) for the FCT, Abuja. In a market system, the relative prices of housing should reflect both their relative costs of production and their relative utilities to purchasers, whether the latter intend to use them for residential or commercial purposes. It reflects areas where home values are increasing or decreasing.
This study is also the first to quantify the extent of housing demand in the Federal Capital Territory Abuja. A major finding of the study is that there is huge demand for affordable housing opportunities in Abuja with an estimated gap of almost 600,000 housing units. The potential opportunities in this market are significant and deserve increasing attention. Investors in the market will miss the opportunities if they do not consider the realities of affordability across the socio-economic spectrum and design their products accordingly. The opportunities lie further down the income pyramid, where the bulk of the population sits.
RIRFHUD is a corporate social responsibility effort and a non-governmental initiative aimed at providing information and analytics to the residential real estate market in Nigeria. The Foundation is strictly set up as an institution for social capital, advocacy and policy making towards the development of the Nigerian housing market and ultimately the provision of affordable housing to the citizenry. Before now, the foundation had successfully published and presented the 2009 and 2016 editions of “The State of the Lagos Housing Market.”
Housing, Works and Power Minister, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN
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