AFFORDABLE HOUSING TIPS TO CONSIDER WHEN PLANNING ON OWNING A HOUSE

My company, Realty Point Limited, has proven that affordable housing can be achieved by the middle class and lower income earners in the society that have the strong desire to own a house.

The thousands of Nigerians that own houses in the seven estates we developed with our proven strategies of buying or building quality cheap housing are no fluke.

If you’re searching for proven tips on how you can own a reasonably priced house, then this article is for you.

What’s affordable housing? It means that the construction cost or selling price is within the reach of low income earners in a society.

Before we move to the nitty-gritty of how you can own a quality low income apartments, it’s important that you are clear in your head and mind the type of house you want so you can draw up the resources needed to achieve your reality.

How do you want to go about getting it? To own a quality cheap house, you either buy the property or buy a piece of land and build on it.

The few times I have consulted with people interested in low cost houses, the results have always been one sided and shocking.

People always want far more than what they can afford.

According to a common adage, “What tragedy is greater than not being able to afford what you want and not wanting what you can afford.” That’s a food for thought.

What really can you afford?

While the issue of affordability is very relative, most people who attempt building their houses at the right time in life-early don’t have so much money to throw around on the project.

So, they are basically concerned with bare necessities and not luxuries per say. My advice for first time home builders/buyers is to focus on necessities.

In proffering affordable housing solution to your needs, I will be sharing 3 proven tips, which is an extraction from my new book titled ‘Sack Your Landlord!’ Let’s get started:

Building Design: 

The first aspect you must consider in owning affordable housing is the building design. The design of an apartment or house impact greatly on construction cost and for a building to become affordable, spaces must be reduced to living, dining, room(s), convenience(s) and kitchen.

Even after reducing what is provided for no sheer essentials, there sizes also must be just appropriate because the bigger a house or an apartment the more the cost of construction.

For example, an affordable 3 bedroom apartment or house should not be occupying more than 100sqm, anything above this will have left the region of low building.

Finance: 

The second tips in proffering quality affordable housing solution is the aspect of finance. The access to mortgage provisions helps affordability a great deal especially when the cost and tenure of finance are very competitive.

The interest rate/charges payable on a mortgage and the tenure of the loan are critical elements of affordability, the lower the rate and the longer the tenure, the more affordable the house type because it means more people will be able to take and repay such loans based on their current earning since constitutionally, individuals are not allowed to spend more than about 30% of their earnings on housing.

Building Materials:

Finally, in devising strategy to owning low income apartments, you must consider building material types and finishing.

For example, there are more affordable materials apart from the regularly used sand-cement blocks like laterite blocks which require lesser amount of cement to stabilize and finish.

It has also been proved to be better suited for our tropical climate. It is estimated that one can save between 30-40% of the building cost when laterite is used as against regular cement block.