The Director, University of Lagos Center for Housing Studies, Timothy Nubi has said that if Nigeria wants to overcome its huge housing deficit estimated to be 17 million, it has to reduce the cost of building construction via intensive research.
According to the renowned don in an intrrview with BULLNET, a quarterly real estate publication, since there is lack of effective mortgage in the country; coupled with low salary and high price, they have to resort to the option of reducing building cost just like China did which now make them have housing surplus in spite of their massive population.
He added that in Nigeria, due to the fact that it is hard for government to increase wages which could enable people of low class to own their personal houses; therefore, government has to devise so many ways to reduce cost.
In his words “Affordability is in three ways; firstly is the price within my income; secondly, is my income/salary increased; thirdly, tell me to pay for 25 years, then I can afford it.
He added that: “What we have now in Nigeria is that there is no mortgage, price is high, salary is low. Let’s work on the first and second options. Since in Nigeria, we know it may be hard to increase wages, Let’s through research reduce cost of construction in the country like China is doing.”
Shedding more light on the matter, the Professor of Housing said: “There are so many ways to reduce cost, e.g increase scale, prefabrications, reduce people on site, etc. Then work on the mortgage infrastructure. Let’s also look at the ways to encourage installment payments for home acquisition,” he said.
He stressed that if government wants to make meaningful impact in the provision of housing, the role of research should not be overemphasised; adding that with the input of quality research, they would be able to x-ray the issues and come out with the proper solution.
“We can’t define our problems except we do research, we cannot recommend a problem except we diagnose. The problems of housing in Ibadan is different from that in Lagos. So the approach cannot be centralised from Abuja, you need to do research. There must be housing master plan for every state just as you have master plan for urban and regional planning,” he said.
