Chigoziri Onuoha planned to spend her last year at the University of Lagos in the university’s student housing. However, the high demand for places forced her to rent her own apartment.
Ms Onuoha says there are lots of options, but none she can afford. With N200,000 a month in savings, she claims agents have shown her properties three times the rent.
Nigerian private developers have rushed to build homes in recent years due to increased population and rural-urban migration.
Strong demand, hefty construction costs, and developers’ lack of market research have resulted in a deluge of new two- and three-bedroom homes, say housing experts.
“When 60 per cent of Nigerians are under the age of 40 and not married, developers should not be building duplexes,” Timothy Nubi, head of the Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development at the University of Lagos, said.
“You do not go to a city and build family houses all over the place, because they will be empty.”
New houses in Lagos and other large cities in Nigeria are big family homes that often cost over one million naira per year, or three times the annual minimum wage.
In July, housing minister Babatunde Fashola denied that Nigeria had a housing shortfall.
“There are empty houses all over the major urban centres of Nigeria,” he told reporters. “It is illogical to say we have that housing deficit when (we) have empty houses.”
The Ministry of Works and Housing has commissioned a team to examine the country’s vacant dwellings, according to Boade Akinola, the ministry’s spokesperson.
“It is hoped that at the end of the exercise, the government will come up with a policy that will (solve) the anomaly,” she said.
