Ooni of Ife Urge Real Estate Professionals to Cooperate to Grow Sector

 By Bayo Adeoye

The Ooni of Ife, His Imperial Majesty, Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi  Ojaja II, has advised players in the nation’s real estate sector to cooperate with each other and with the government to ensure that Nigeria moves from housing construction to housing manufacturing.
The Ooni stated this during the launch of “The State of Lagos Housing Market Report – Volume 2” by the Roland Igbinoba Real Foundation for Housing and Urban Development, (RIRFHUD), at an event attended by relevant industry stakeholders.
The Ooni, who is a notable player in the Lagos and Nigerian housing market, said this was the only way the housing deficit in the country, which is put at about 20 million, could be reversed.

On his part, Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, represented by the Lagos State Commissioner for Housing, Gbolahan Lawal disclosed that the state had commenced a rent-to-occupy scheme to enable more of its population access and afford houses of their own. The report, which was formally presented to the public in Lagos, recently, outlines many indices in the residential real estate market in Lagos.
For example, the report states that Lagos state housing deficit is 2.9 million units, and that 71% of Lagosians default in their rents. Furthermore, as many as 66 per cent of respondents surveyed across the length and breadth of the city-state, disclosed that they preferred traditional brick and mortar constructions to houses made with alternative building technologies.
Entitled “The State of Lagos Housing Market Report, Vol 2”, it is a sequel to the first edition that had been published and launched in 2009.
Later in the event, the Ooni of Ife and the Executive Governor (represented by Honorable Gbolahan Lawal) unveil the report.
Speaking on how the report will impact the economy, Newton Jibunoh, chairman of the foundation noted that through the publication of the book, they have given support to a fledgling sector of the economy, thereby contributing to the process of effecting a small change.
Presenting a brief of the report that was said to have taken four years (2012 to 2016) to gather, Roland Igbinobia, the founder of RIRFHUD began with the Lagos HOMS project, which he says has about 10,000 units, both completed and uncompleted.
He spoke about the Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC); the amount so far accessed from the NMRC and mortgage institutions involved.
According to him, “We looked at the impact of the NMRC because there has been a lot of conversation around the setting up of this secondary mortgage institution. About N1.8billion has been accessed from the NMRC. These comprise Imperial Homes, N970 million; Homebase Mortgage Bank, N492 million, and TrustBond Mortgage Bank, 300million. There is a lot to be tapped from NMRC. We just feel that a lot needs to be done.”