5 reasons for the housing crisis in Lagos
Maya’s valuable Lesson
How does that saying go? The most important things in life are free? Maya wasn’t having that today. She gave her friend a stern look after the words left her mouth, Beatrice was giggling. And the only funny thing in the room was her account balance compared to the estimated cost she had made to get an apartment. She had spent the past hour lamenting about her woes. She was on the verge of losing it and even as her friend offered her moral support, saying all the positive things you would hear in a TED talk, she felt mocked.
The housing crisis in Nigeria would drive anyone crazy and today when she wasn't wallowing in self-pity as usual. She was puzzled as to why it was that way. Beatrice wasn’t helping very much, she is the kind of friend that makes dark humor while the doctor placed you in ICU. She picked up her phone, today she was going to do some internet surfing and get her answers.
She did get her answers, five reasons for the crime scene that was Nigeria’s housing space.
Cost of building materials. According to a CHAF analysis, construction costs and infrastructure costs made up a total of 62% of housing costs. Even using the cheapest materials does not make up for these crippling expenses. Costs like this ensure that it is almost impossible to build affordable housing. Very many of these housing materials are imported, and as the naira continues in a free fall, this means that there is an ever-increasing cost when it comes to making quality, durable and affordable housing.
Demand & Supply. Basic economics teaches us that when scarcity exists for a particular product that has a high demand, it is only natural for the prices to skyrocket as the suppliers manipulate the situation to maximize profit. As more people move to Lagos due to work shortages in other parts of the country, there exists a raging demand which can hardly be met. There are yet no innovative or lasting solutions found yet to meet the housing shortage or even the job shortages causing this migration to urban areas.
Middlemen. Contractors take as much as a 35% cut when it comes to house development, this is not the only middleman in the game, there is also the agent, who for renters, is their biggest nightmare. There are instances where the processing fee for an agent costs as much as the yearly rent. At the end of the day for those who wish to buy, build or rent a house all of these middlemen contribute to driving up the cost.
A Poor Populace. All of the above factors contribute to driving up house prices, but this particular factor contributes to the quality of houses that are built. Although Lagos has a fairly large middle class, however, the cost of living is so high that very many do not have much to spare on renting or buying a house. For this reason, creating affordable housing means a drastic cut-down. Contractors are forced to use building materials of lower quality and optimize space as the cost per square meter does not match what the average Lagosian can afford. What we have at the end of the day are falling buildings, cracked houses, leaking roofs, and kiosk-like houses.
Lack of Intervention. For some reason, very many luxurious apartments exist in Lagos that have no occupants, just as well as many ‘affordable’ houses are mere shackles used as tools for extortion. This is a tell-tale of how the government remains negligent in enforcing housing policies and providing solutions to one of Lagos’s biggest problems. Not direct causation but correlated nonetheless are the bad roads and terrible traffic which causes Lagosians to seek houses within proximity of their workplace thus driving up demand. Interventions toward these direct causes and correlated events remain largely unseen.
Maya was mesmerized by how much she had learned on the internet. Beatrice was snoring loudly, awake or not, she always had to be a disturbance. She thought of Hiyalo and how its payment solution would provide immense helped solve all the problems.
Hiyalo is a property tech company that allows a flexible payment option for those who can foot housing costs upfront. Maya thought of how innovative a solution it was, the middlemen wouldn’t go away so she had to pay that and if she waited too long to save up the balance, then the house was gone. She had reckoned that she was part of the poor populace — who could not save up enough in time to get the juiciest houses —but with Hiyalo, she could get her dream house and pay conveniently.
Maybe Beatrice wasn’t wrong, the most important things are free. Finding Hiyalo came at no cost to her, sign up for the publication and join the waitlist. That is all it takes. She nudged Beatrice again, to stop the snoring, her eyes were barely shut before she heard a Lion’s growl come from Beatrice. She giggled. It was her first smile all day.
