How to solve Nigeria’s housing problem, by Balogun

Real estate developers have been urged to shift attention from top-end market in order to service middle class members of the society.

The call was made in Lagos by MKO Balogun, CEO, WSP FMC Nigeria Ltd, at a training programme on ‘The Future of Workplace: Role of FM’ for facility managers.

Balogun said the rising housing problem in the midst of building projects, especially in the cities, is as a result of lack of understanding on the part of real estate developers.

“Most players in the real estate industry are into the top end of the market, building three-bedroom and four-bedroom apartments. Most of those buildings are in highbrow areas like Lekki, Ikoyi, Ikeja, etc. You find out that most of the vacant houses are bigger than what most residents in Lagos actually need or can comfortably afford,” he noted.

According to him, the developers do not put into consideration the fact that the nation’s active population is now the youth, within the age bracket of 22, 25 or 30 years who work and marry with lots of responsibilities, adding that nuclear family system places the burden of other members of their families on them; so, they don’t need self-contained or two-bedroom flats.

“I have told a lot of people that we need to adopt China method. China has self-contained and two-bedroom housing system. And they are not vacant. There are lots of people who need housing in Lagos but they can’t afford big houses, the houses available are not their match in terms of affordability. The houses are too expensive. So, that’s the mismatch.

“If people who are into real estate can change their focus, move away from building houses people cannot occupy to those that people can afford, accommodation problem will be solved,” Balogun said.

He also called for legislation to check the rising increase in abandoned projects across the country. According to him, “A lot of the projects that are abandoned have economic reasons. When we had the real estate boom between 2005 and 2007 a lot of banks were pumping money into real sector, but when the bubble burst, everybody started withdrawing from real estate financing. A lot of projects were abandoned and banks are no longer willing to lend money for real estate purposes.

“To check the spate of abandonment, there could be a legislation that will say any building that is abandoned for, say, five years and above, should be taken over by government and finished to serve the masses. Such a policy would help check the situation. The reason for the rising cases of building collapse in cities is that there is no monitoring by government, so you see situations where the owners of such projects that had been abandoned for over seven years go ahead to complete them without putting into consideration the decay that had taken toll on the structures,” he added.

Speaking with BusinessDay, Rowland Gurnell, chief operating officer, Broll, South Africa, said to check the incessant building collapse in Nigeria, standard must be enforced.

“It is all about regulations. There must be a standard to which house owners and facility managers must abide by,” he said, adding, “There’s need to operate within the ambit of ethics, that’s what makes us tick.”