‘Houses Are Available But No Buyers’

In an interview with Daily Trust, Suleman Ibrahim Jatto who is the Managing Director of Builtoption Limited, spoke on how lack of access to mortgage is affecting the real estate sector stating that houses are available but no buyers. See excerpts below:

What are the challenges facing real estate sector in the country?
One of the major challenges facing the real estate sector is the inability of the ordinary Nigerian to afford a good home. The ordinary Nigerian has no money to pay for a house even when houses are provided by developers. Developers would build houses and nobody would come for them due to lack of fund.

Another critical issue in the sector is lack of access to mortgage by both the developers and Nigerians.
What are the hurdles to accessing mortgage?
There are many factors affecting mortgage financing in Nigeria. The capacity of the Primary Mortgage Institutions (PMIs) which serve as the vehicle through which citizens can access the National Housing Fund (NHF) is too small. These PMIs are really not financially strong enough to provide the needed fund to the people. It is not long that their minimum capital base was raised to N200 million and how much is that compared to those who want to access fund for housing.
Secondly, the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) is not fully funded to meet the needs of developers as well as people in terms of access to loan. The bank is not fully funded because their capital base was raised to N5 billion recently. If developers have access to mortgage and loan, it would be better for the country.
It seems the property market is saturated as some developer claimed there are no immediate returns of investment?
I don’t believe the property market is saturated because we have about 17 million housing deficit in the country. I think the issue is access to fund to be able to own a house by ordinary Nigerians. If the government pumps more money into the sector, the issue of poor market or no immediate returns on investment would not be there. Houses are there but no buyers because of the economy and lack access to mortgage.
Read full interview here