The facility will aid the bank to ensure a long tenure of mortgage facilities to its clients, to be serviced between 15 and 20 years. This is a total break away from the conventional tenure of six to 10 years operational in Nigeria and the first equity is going to be 20 percent of the cost of houses in view.

AFTER highlighting the numerous opportunities within the nation’s mortgage sector, a leading mortgage institution in Nigeria, Imperial Homes Mortgage Bank Limited (IHMBL) has urged Nigerians to key into its programmes, which aims at helping the citizens to challenge of homelessness.

According to the bank it would redouble its efforts to bridge the nation’s housing gab, as it has developed various housing products for middle and upper classes of the population.

Imperial Homes is confident to deliver on its mandate more than ever as it had recently clinched about N1b deal from the Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC) for the purpose of refinancing the mortgages of the bank.

This facility, has further confirmed that Nigerians, particularly the middle and upper class earners are in for better times, as mortgage refinancing, a landmark development in Nigeria, has taken off in practical sense.

According to officials, the approximately N1b would be used to refinance existing mortgages of Imperial Homes, in line with the pursuit and purpose of NMRC’s aim of facilitating the provision of affordable homes to Nigerians at good mortgage rates.

Speaking exclusively with The Guardian at its headquarters’ office in Lagos recently, the Managing Director of the bank, Mr. Ben Akaneme said the bank, which is happy to secure the deal, would use the facility to assist would-be homeowners to achieve their dreams with less stress.

Imperial Homes Mortgage Bank was formerly known as GTHomes Limited, the bank has since repositioned itself to serve Nigerians much better in the area of providing affordable and realistic mortgages.

On the loan, Akaneme said that the bank’s success in sealing the deal has put it in a good stead to actualize its goals in bridging the gap in housing provision, especially, for the middle and upper class in the social strata.

A visibly delighted Akaneme, who said the bank’s vision is “to be the leading mortgage bank out of Africa”, its mission statement is “to make mortgage easy and affordable”, added things are getting better for the sector and Nigerians.

According to him, being the first recipient of NMRC’s gesture has further strengthen the position of Imperial Homes Mortgage Bank as a leader in the subsector, Akaneme added.

On the bank’s plan, the Managing Director said: “Major features of our plan are to ensure a long tenure of our facilities to our clients, knowing fully well that mortgage becomes meaningful if the tenure is long. Unlike before, our facility will expand to between 15-20 years, unlike the conventional tenure of six to 10 years that has been the practice in Nigeria and the first equity is going to be 20 percent of the cost of houses in view.

“Besides, we will ensure that processing of our facility for our customers does not go beyond maximum of two weeks, provided their documentation is complete and perfectly done”, assured Akaneme.

Apart from proper documentation, he said what the bank needs from their clients is to know the type of house they need, their annual incomes and the regularity of their incomes. This offer is not for only salary earners but also, businessmen and women alike. This is to enable the bank assess them and ensure that the burden of debt they carry would not jeopardize other responsibilities in their families.

“We want to ensure that debts our clients are carrying in terms of taxes, loans from their employers is not more that 35 percent. Anything above that is not acceptable, because it would have negative effects on their other obligations, especially, their families, in term of feeding, school fees, health care expenditures and the rest”.

Stating the importance of mortgage, IHMBL boss noted that apart from home being an asset, it is also a veritable opportunity to build wealth.

“For example, if one is able to offset his mortgage, he/she automatically becomes the owner of the house. This will offer opportunity to use the house as collateral to obtain financial facility to start a business, and that is one of our goals, to creates wealth for young Nigerians”.

On the challenges facing housing delivery in Nigeria, Akaneme listed three major constraints, namely: Funding, which he said NMRC is trying to address; Timing in title documentation process and Cost of construction.

“No matter what we may say, time is of essence in business. When it takes much time to do what one needs to do, naturally it would affect projection. This can be witnessed if it takes a long time to process title document. Although, government is doing a lot to address this problem, but it can still do more.

Cost of production is very high in Nigeria and this is hampering housing delivery to eligible Nigerians, whose financial power cannot match the cost of what developers brought to the market.