Shelter is a basic necessity of an after food. Man, wherever he may find himself has always desired a suitable shelter for living, protection, comfort, relaxation and some other uses. Through the ages he has not stopped searching for a befitting accommodation to meet his needs. The limiting factors to own a home include some of the following; cost of land acquisition, construction cost, style, design, purpose and use. These however, have little or no effect on the desires of the elites, the rich and the well-to-do in the society on developing and owning property.
In recent years, home ownership for the middle and low income earners of the society is turning to be a mirage as building materials, construction costs and other factors have constantly put housing development at a very high cost. In more developed countries, accommodation and home ownership is easier as governments and financial institutions have planned and effective housing policies and programmed to aid the citizenry in home ownership at an affordable rate taking advantage of relevant and appropriate mortgage facilities.
In the developing world, especially in metropolitan African cities, scarcity of living accommodation has traditionally been an issue. The available housing stock is diminishing by the day due to the high level of rural drift to urban centers. In Nigerian cities like Lagos, Port Harcourt and Abuja there is a high incidence of housing scarcity without adequate shelter to meet these needs. few available command high rents far beyond the reach of most of the people.
Federal and state governments have in the past initiated good housing programmed aimed at housing provision; however, in present times it has been very difficult to replicate these programmed due to poor implementation, politics, corruption and some other factors. Housing schemes these days are targeted at the wealthy who have the money for out-right purchase of the different houses that have been able to be delivered. Festival town, Games village, 1004 estates and other government states are some of the programmed that have benefited the citizens in the past. They have however not been adequate to meet the ever increasing rise of the population of Nigeria which stands at over 140 million as in 2007.
Therefore, with the recent consolidation of the banking and insurance sector in Nigeria it is believed that there are enough funds for these financial institutions to go into housing developments to meet the needs of the teeming population of the urban dwellers. Since property development involves huge capital outlay, these financial institutions in conjunction with governments at different levels can go into partnership for the massive development of high rise, low income apartments built for mortgage purposes to cater for low and middle income earners. Theses monetary institutions should look into the possibility of investing a substantial portion of their funds into long-term mortgage facilities for housing development to help curb this problem of housing shortage.
The government should take a critical study of similar massive housing development for low income earners as developed in China, Singapore, Malaysia and Egypt. Thereafter, appropriate legislation and development of an effective and suitable model for Nigeria be passed into law. The model should be one that would be easily implemented and adapted to meet our local needs. Collaboration with applicable financial institutions, developers, building professional and investors for long term investment in this sector is feasible. A collaboration of this nature should make government to pass legislation aimed at easing land acquisition, advance planning permissions and perfection of titles for low cost housing developments.
The government should also provide land at affordable cost to developers even in areas away from city centers to avoid over-crowding. They should agree to construct link roads as well as, provision of site and service infrastructures for these lands such as; like electricity, water, roads and other basic needs to attract people to these areas.
On completion of these developments, to say; one, two and bedrooms apartments according to needs and requirements, people who really need these accommodations should be made to apply on one-apartment, one person basis. A properly drawn agreement with clear terms for repayment periods, low and affordable periodic mortgage payments and other terms favorable to both the developer and the allot tees would then be entered into with the plotters and the apartment delivered. The allocation of apartments to existing land or home owners should be avoided. Ethical considerations, double allocations, allocation to friends and cronies should also be done away with. This it is believed boost the present low housing stock, empowers the citizen and would in the long run help to take Nigeria closer to her desired realization of Vision 2020 in the housing sector.
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