• Thursday, March 28, 2024
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Affordable Housing targets low-income earners with new scheme

Affordable Housing targets low-income earners with new scheme

Opportunity to own homes is coming the way of low and middle-income earners, informal and skilled professionals who are the main focus of a new housing scheme launched recently by Affordable Housing Cooperative Society Limited to tackle housing deficit in Nigeria.

The new housing scheme is determined to ease the process of owning homes for all Nigerians by creating the capacity needed for homeownership in choice location across the country with minimal financial burden.

“The target of this initiative is to address prospective homebuyers’ concerns which impede real estate investments in Nigeria,” Morola Babalola, the initiator of the Affordable Housing Cooperative, explained at the launch of the scheme in Lagos.

She observed that despite the increase in private sector investments in the Nigerian real estate industry, the country’s housing deficit keeps getting worse.

Babalola, who is also the chief executive officer, Townsead Property Investment Limited, explained that Affordable Housing Cooperative is the next step in the quest to enabling low and middle- income persons in Nigeria, irrespective of the location, to attain the freedom of becoming homeowners and gaining economic empowerment.

Housing deficit in Nigeria remains intractable despite initiatives by federal and Lagos State governments, blaming the persisting deficit on the perennial mismatch between the desired homes and what is available for low income and informal sector individuals.

Read Also: Lagos increases housing stock with 360 units of 3-bedroom flats

Gbenga Ashafa, managing director, Federal Housing Authority (FHA), said that to deliver affordable homes, design specification and costing must be taken into consideration.

Ashafa, represented by Hayatudden Atiku Awwal, managing director, FHA Mortgage Bank Limited, however, assured that the bank was committed to delivering affordable housing.

“In the context of the National Housing Fund (NHF), which is being managed by the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), the cap for affordability is N15 million,” he disclosed, noting that he was delighted to be among this pioneer affordable housing delivery through cooperatives.

Ayodeji Amodu, senior special assistant to the governor of Lagos State on housing, noted that with the huge housing deficit in the state, the state government was still resolute on creating more innovative ways for supplying decent and affordable homes to the residents. He noted further that given the state’s limited landmass and the increased pressure on available land for housing and other development activities, the time was ripe for thinking outside the box.