001: Broken

We need a cleanup crew

The housing system is broken! 

I am only going to say this once. However,  this is not the first time I would say it nor the last. I have told it to loved ones, to real estate agents, to anyone really, who was genial enough to listen to me rant. 

I have declared it to my best friend and former flatmate as we hunted for a place to live. At the height of our frustration, she shared this thread from Twitter. I read as others described their dreadful experiences and we laughed at the rather comical antics of Lagos real estate agents - something we had all grown accustomed to. But no matter how much we laughed we knew one indelible truth - this really wasn’t funny.

Housing is no joke

In 2020, the United Nations issued a release that claimed that Nigeria has a housing deficit of at least 20M units. If you examine this number against the backdrop of another report that asserts that the standard house in tropical regions should contain between three to five people. We can safely estimate that at least 60M Nigerians are homeless ( that’s a quarter of the total population). These stats are just as alarming as any of the recent data on housing and its prospects; including several studies that show that millennials and Gen Zs would struggle to own homes despite the general optimism from two-thirds of the two groups. 

While estimates and indicators of the magnitude of the housing deficits have varied, they all indicate massive shortfalls and if you were thinking about it. No - Nigeria is not alone, from the United States to the United Kingdom to India. There seems to be a burgeoning trend of homelessness around the world. But homelessness is not the only issue, or is it?

An anecdote on price

After eight insufferable months, our search was over.

The house on Olufemi Rd was perfect! The 2 bedroom suite had these striking french windows that I liked, it had a nice little tub so I could take my ceremoniously long baths and most importantly it was a walking distance to my best friend's office. We didn’t mind that it had no flooring, no kitchen cabinets, missing windowpanes, broken doors and a septic tank that had nearly caved in. We were delighted to meet the landlady with the hope of renting the place.

We never got to live in the house on Olufemi Rd, why? Due to mass interest, the landlady inflated the asking rent by 25% after incipiently assuring us that all that remained was for her to pray about our tenancy.

Something actually worth praying about

Without a precise valuation system, available housing in Nigeria is frequently overpriced, inhabitable, or below standard; resulting in overcrowding, and slum and squatter settlements. 

Real estate companies are developing new units every day but are failing to tackle the problem - affordable housing - What is it - Affordable housing is housing that is affordable to those with a median or below household income as rated by the government or by a recognized housing affordability index. 

Taking into account that roughly 73% of the country’s working population earn below N200k monthly and the current minimum wage it is easy to see why owning, or renting proper accommodation is becoming increasingly difficult.

It's the government's fault?

If you have arrived at this conclusion, I may have to agree with you. The decade 1970–1980 started with both the Federal and State governments assigning a low priority to the housing sector in their development plans. Public policies and programs outlined the country's housing problems mainly in terms of numerical shortages and physical standards and attempted to meet these “quantitative and qualitative” deficiencies centrally. 

Obviously, this approach failed, my guess is that the foregoing conclusion is only partially correct. While the government is responsible for not paying enough attention to the problem and not creating incentives for the private sector to participate actively. There are other causative social and economic factors like market-led gentrification, the middle-man problem and the inadequacy of mortgage finance institutions in Nigeria that cannot be solved by government intervention alone.

So how do we solve the housing crisis?

There is a lot of literature out there that looks to tackle the housing crisis around the world. I have some ideas of my own, but they are not nearly enough. Along with my co-conspirators, we hope to investigate some of these noteworthy ideas. Our goal is to inform so that as a collective we realise enough social consciousness of the surrounding problems that it leads to solutions.

If you have theories or ideas you’d like to study or share; or are generally passionate about social good. We invite you to be a part of the process by joining our community.