The state manages social housing and because it is accessible to low income earners, it is sometimes called low-cost housing.
Events of the recent past have shown that Nigerians prefer low-cost housing to the conventional housing estates now in vogue. A lot of reasons have been adduced to support the idea of low-cost housing against the conventional or the modern housing estates. One of the reasons is the fact that the houses have the same structure and features, yet, as the name implies, the cost of owning or renting such houses are relatively cheaper compared to what we have now days.
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The challenge of housing in terms of quality and quantity appear to be the same all over the world, but in Nigeria, it is more of a complex case. It is the primacy of the housing question that spurred the United Nations to promote the programme of housing for all by the year 2000.
Good quality housing, as a basic need, is lacking for a sizeable number of Nigerians and so the medium and low income segments of the population, most of who live in urban centres, suffer severe housing crisis. The World Bank, (TWB) had estimated the cost of bridging Nigeria’s then 17 million housing deficit is N59.5 trillion, even though that number is far below the living deficits. This therefore is underlining the vast and untapped investment potential of the country’s real estate sector. One of the continuing challenges posed by unprecedented urbanization in the developing countries is the provision of adequate housing. Over the last three decades, Nigeria, like several developing countries, has emphasised public housing schemes, but with little success. This little success stemmed from the fact that the policy was merely paper tiger that has not been given the serious bite to make impact. This coincides with global paradigm shift from direct public provision of housing to the enablement of private shelter initiatives and housing production.
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