Only Mortgages can reduce housing deficit – FASHOLA

The Governor of Lagos state, Babatunde Raji Fashola, on Thursday said home ownership through mortgage was the only way to address the problem of housing deficit in the country.

The governor spoke at the inauguration of Chois Estate, a housing estate in Lekki area of the state.

NAN reports that the 420-unit estate of bungalows and duplexes was delivered by the state government in partnership with a property development company, First Communities Limited.

Fashola said that the major barrier to home ownership was affordability, saying it would extremely be difficult for people to own homes if they were asked to pay outright for it.

The governor said his administration was building homes and allocating them on mortgage to residents, to ensure convenient home ownership.

“Mortgages remain the only way to reduce housing deficit and ensure convenient home ownership. That is how it is done all over the world.”

“That is what we are doing with our homes. We allocate them to our people and ask them to pay the equity contributions and spread the remaining payments over a minimum of 10 years.”

He said a similar estate had been delivered in Agbowa area of the state and 10,000 homes would be delivered at the conclusion of the project phase under the government partnership with First Communities.