Financial regulators, developers, housing experts and corporate leaders have renewed calls for sweeping mortgage and housing reforms, warning that Nigeria’s economic growth ambitions will remain limited unless access to affordable housing finance is significantly expanded.
The call was made at the Continental Civil General Construction Ltd and QShelter Strategy Retreat 2025, themed “Accelerating Access, Building Trust, and Democratising Homeownership in Nigeria and Beyond.”
The retreat brought together key stakeholders across the housing value chain to chart a sustainable path for mortgage expansion, housing delivery and economic inclusion.
Chief Commercial Officer, QShelter Limited, Dare Makinde, said Nigeria’s mortgage penetration remains alarmingly low due to years of weak reforms, inadequate funding and poor public confidence in housing delivery.
He noted that the country is lagging behind peers such as Ghana, Kenya and South Africa.
“For decades, mortgage reforms were more on paper than in reality. However, recent initiatives such as the Mortgage Refinance and Interest Fund (MRIF) show that government attention is finally shifting in the right direction,” he said.
Makinde disclosed that MRIF currently has about N250 billion available for mortgage lending, with over N65 billion already disbursed in less than six months, a development he described as unprecedented.
According to him, the availability of funds, rather than interest rates, is now the key to unlocking mortgage access.
Citing widespread cases of failed housing projects and abandoned developments, he said: “Interest rates are no longer the biggest problem. We have single-digit options, NHF at six per cent, rent-to-own at seven per cent, and MRIF at 9.75 per cent. The biggest issue today is trust.”
He urged the government to address housing affordability by subsidising critical construction inputs such as cement and iron rods, investing in land banking and reducing equity contribution requirements for homebuyers.
The Chief Operating Officer of QShelter, Alamu Adegbenga, emphasised that the retreat focused on scaling housing supply and deliberately integrating Nigeria’s vast informal sector into the mortgage system.
He cited data showing that over 65 per cent of Nigerians earn their livelihoods in the informal economy.
“The informal sector is Nigeria’s biggest untapped housing market. They earn income, but irregularly, and traditional mortgage products don’t work for them. Our goal is to design innovative products that allow them to pay over 10 to 20 years without disrupting their working capital,” he said.
