Developer targets first-time homeowners

Determined to reduce housing deficit, Lagos-based developer-Messrs Relive Housing, in partnership with Homework Development (HWD) Group and other industry players have unveiled Cornerstone Heights, an affordable housing scheme for early-career professionals and first-time home-owners.
 
The scheme known as Cornerstone Heights estate, comprises a 56-unit two-bedroom apartment located in Ogombo Town, Lagos. It comes under Chics Doing Real Estate (CDRE). The estate is sited on a 4,000 square metres of land and is expected to transform into community, where people can shop, live, work and play.
 
Speaking during the groundbreaking of the project, Founder of Relive Housing project, Mojisola Afolayan, said: “Our mandate is to provide one million housing units across Africa, while our immediate goal within the next five years is to deliver 10,000 housing units.”
 
With the rise in the cost of building materials, poverty, increasing population, high rate of urbanisation and the lack of a functioning mortgage system, Nigeria’s housing deficit is estimated to have hit over 22 million units.

On funding of the project, Afolayan said the development is funded in collaboration with Homework Development Group. 
 
“Before now, as an estate surveyor and valuer, all we did was to help people find houses to rent and to buy, we have gotten to a stage where we need to do more in terms of creating value. People paid to collectively buy this land; so, it is collaboration from CDRE and industry experts. Industry players are taking step to help more people climb the property ladder,” she said.

The Director, HWD Group, Chima Emerueh, said: “We did the designs and co-developing. We are targeting early-career individuals and first-time homeowners, people that want their starter homes, also people that have investment income.”

Contributing, another Director at Homework, Jide Adekola, said: “The problem is, there is no limit on what can be achieved when you collaborate with other professionals.”

Also speaking, the Principal Partner, InBlack&White LP, Aderinsola Fagbure, emphasised that the project is a physical demonstration of tenacity and the advantages of having numbers.