• Property owners adopt strategies to eject tenants, raise rents
• Landlords lament economic hardship, cost of maintenance
• Tenants opt for outskirts as transport costs erode savings
• Transportation becoming extension of housing burden
• Experts urge serviced public land, waivers for affordable housing projects

For millions of Nigerians living in fast-growing cities, the challenge is no longer simply finding a roof over their heads but determining how much of their income remains after paying rent.

The Guardian gathered that some landlords, grappling with inflation and rising living costs, are increasing rents to cover higher maintenance and household expenses. A retired civil servant and property owner, for instance, said he built houses as a retirement investment but now has to raise rents as his costs increase.

Market reports in 2026 indicate that rents in major Nigerian cities have risen by 15 to 75 per cent year-on-year across residential segments, driven by housing shortages, urban migration, inflation and speculative pricing. Building costs have also surged, with cement rising from N2,500-N3,000 a bag in 2020 to N12,000-N15,000 in 2026, while housing supply has remained stagnant and Lagos’ deficit grew from 2.95 million to 3.4 million units.

Earlier findings also showed rents and property prices rising faster than wages, with some locations recording increases of more than 100 per cent over relatively short periods. For workers whose salaries have remained largely stagnant or risen only modestly, the result is a sharp decline in disposable income.

In Ejigbo, Lagos, some landlords have reportedly issued tenants notices to renovate their properties before re-letting them at substantially higher rates. Houses previously rented for N500,000 to N700,000 yearly are now being re-let for N2.5 million, N3 million and as much as N5 million, excluding agency fees, agreement charges and caution deposits.

In Mushin, rents for houses previously ranging from N300,000 to N2.5 million have risen to between N1 million and N3.7 million, while a self-contained apartment now attracts about N1 million annually. In Surulere, a two-bedroom flat costs about N5 million a year, compared with N1.5 million to N2.5 million for similar accommodation in Abule Egba.

With such steep increases, tenants unable to afford new rents are increasingly moving to cheaper, farther locations. Rent is taking a larger share of household earnings, leaving less for food, transport, healthcare, education and savings. However, relocating to the outskirts does not necessarily resolve the problem, as lower rents can be offset by higher commuting costs.

Recent data from GTI Investment Group illustrates the depth of the crisis in Lagos. Its report, Beyond Rent: Mapping Lagos’ Housing-Led Capital Expansion, found that rents in parts of Lagos had risen by 80 to 120 per cent in two years, compared with wage growth of only seven to nine per cent. Based on more than 3,200 rental listings across 15 zones, the research put Lagos’ property price-to-income ratio at 19.2 times.

According to the GTI analysis, a two-bedroom apartment could consume about 29 per cent of the income of someone earning N1 million monthly, 58 per cent for a worker earning N500,000 and as much as 97 per cent for someone earning N300,000. In some cases, housing costs consume 60 to 70 per cent of household income.

The conventional affordability benchmark is that households should spend no more than about 30 per cent of their income on housing. But as rents rise faster than salaries, many urban households are being forced to move into smaller apartments, share accommodation, relocate to distant communities or cut spending on other essentials.

For many Lagos residents, the outskirts have become the most practical alternative. Communities in Ikorodu, Ibeju-Lekki, Badagry and other peripheral areas now attract workers unable to afford accommodation closer to employment centres. Abuja residents are experiencing a similar trend.

The Guardian data shows that cheaper rent does not necessarily mean cheaper living. A worker employed in central Lagos who relocates from Victoria Island, Yaba or Surulere to Ikorodu, Ayobo, Ipaja, Berger or another distant suburb must add commuting costs to the real cost of housing.

With daily return fares potentially reaching N2,000 or more on longer routes, a worker commuting 22 days a month could spend N44,000 to N55,000 on transportation, excluding additional fares for connecting from home to major transport corridors.

For example, a worker who saves N700,000 annually by moving to cheaper accommodation could spend an additional N35,000 to N50,000 monthly on transport, or N420,000 to N600,000 a year. The apparent housing saving would therefore shrink to between N100,000 and N280,000, while longer journeys would also take a toll on productivity and family time.

According to the Lagos State Government, residents lose an average of four hours daily to traffic congestion, resulting in estimated annual economic losses of N4 trillion. These additional costs have discouraged some residents from relocating, leaving them caught between high rents in employment centres and expensive commuting from the outskirts.

The pressure is compounded by the wider cost-of-living crisis. Nigeria’s headline inflation eased to 14.63 per cent in September 2026 from 15.39 per cent in August, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. However, food inflation rose to 19.59 per cent year-on-year, underscoring continued pressure on household budgets.

The moderation in headline inflation does not mean prices have fallen; rather, they are rising more slowly. For households already facing higher rents, accumulated increases in food, transport, electricity and other essentials continue to erode purchasing power.

While tenants complain about rent increases, landlords and developers argue that they are also operating in an increasingly expensive housing-production environment. The cost of construction and maintenance has risen sharply, driven by inflation, materials, labour, energy, transport, exchange-rate pressures and high borrowing costs.

Developers also face land acquisition, title documentation, planning approvals, development charges and the cost of providing infrastructure such as roads, drainage, water and electricity. These expenses eventually feed into house prices and rents.

The Federal Government has expanded interventions through the Renewed Hope Housing Programme, the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria and other housing-finance initiatives. One prominent intervention is the MOFI Real Estate Investment Fund, which, as of late August, had deployed N140 billion through 21 financial institutions to create 2,018 mortgages across 27 states.

But the scale of the intervention also highlights the enormity of the challenge. The Federal Government’s National Housing Data Technical Committee put Nigeria’s housing deficit for 2025 at 15 million units.

Experts said the solution must go beyond building more houses and address the entire housing value chain, including land, infrastructure, finance, approvals and transportation. They called for serviced land, improved infrastructure, streamlined approvals and incentives for genuine affordable and rental housing.

The Co-founder of Rethinking Cities, Mr Deji Akinpelu, told The Guardian that many landlords, particularly those in the diaspora, benchmark their returns in dollars and raise naira rents as the currency depreciates.

“The deeper cause, though, is that housing has become an asset market detached from local incomes. Lagos’s price-to-income ratio is 19.2 times, driven by infrastructure and location premiums rather than income growth. Public investment ends up raising private land values, evictions destroy the cheapest homes, and empty buildings are held as stores of value,” he said.

Akinpelu said rising transport costs had also eroded the savings from moving to cheaper locations. “For middle earners, moving out from a location changes where the cost falls rather than removing it. A commute from Ajah to Ikeja can take three hours each way. The bigger danger is that rents near BRT corridors and the Red Line are rising fastest. Without land-value capture and inclusionary zoning around stations, new transit will push out the very people it was built to serve,” he said.

He also criticised Lagos State’s land policies and charges, saying the 2026 Blue Book had raised land valuations by 300 to 525 per cent, increasing fees tied to those valuations. He contrasted one-bedroom units on state land with subsidised infrastructure, costing N8 million to N9 million, with comparable PPP units at about N22 million.

On interventions, Akinpelu said existing housing finance schemes were insufficient to address the rental crisis. “These are ownership schemes in a city where fewer than one in three residents own their homes, so they cannot address rising rents,” he said.

He called for serviced public land, waived fees for affordable housing, faster approvals and greater access to pension funds for developers. For tenants, he advocated passage of the tenancy bill and development of a social rental sector through inclusionary zoning, an inclusionary housing trust fund and Special Planning Area status for informal communities.

Former First Vice President of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), Mr Osita Okoli, similarly linked rising rents to inflation, stagnant wages and the housing shortage.

“The major factors for the expanding chasm between rents and household incomes in Nigeria are the unprecedented inflation arising from the sudden announcement of fuel subsidy removal, the negative effects of which have lingered since 2023, and relatively stagnant wages across most states, barring a few and some private-sector employers,” he said.

Okoli said inconsistent government policies and excessive charges on land transactions had further increased the cost of housing provision. He called for streamlined, technology-driven land administration to boost housing supply and moderate rents and construction costs.

“Ultimately, a review of the land tenure system, including the Land Use Act of 1978, is imperative,” he said, advocating an end to the system vesting control of land in state governors, which he said had created opportunities for exploitation and hindered housing development.

Chairman of the Ogun State branch of NIESV, Mr Adeolu Adejimi, said the widening gap between incomes and housing costs had become a serious affordability crisis.

He said while average wages had risen by only about seven to nine per cent, rents in some neighbourhoods had nearly doubled. “We aren’t just looking at a gap anymore; we’re looking at a crisis that is pricing the average Nigerian out of a place to sleep,” he said.

Adejimi attributed the crisis to rapid urbanisation, inadequate housing supply and rising construction costs. He said Nigeria needed about 15 million additional homes but was building only about 70,000 units annually.

“Landlords know people are desperate, so they hike prices based on the perception of inflation rather than what the property is actually worth,” he said.

He said high development charges, lengthy approval processes and inadequate infrastructure also pushed up housing costs, with developers often required to provide roads, transformers and drainage systems themselves.

Adejimi said programmes such as the Renewed Hope housing initiative had not sufficiently addressed affordability. “Even the low-cost houses are priced beyond the reach of someone earning the N70,000 minimum wage. When the monthly mortgage for a basic apartment is higher than a civil servant’s entire take-home pay, the system isn’t working for those who need it most,” he said.

He called for faster digitisation of land administration, targeted subsidies for essential building materials, better integration of housing with mass transit and rent-to-own schemes that would allow tenants to build equity through their monthly payments.