By Lilian Chukwu
Mr Oguche Agudah, the Chief Investment Officer at NatanelFlorens Real Estate Company, on Tuesday said the firm’s Rent-to-Own housing scheme would reduce the nation’s 17 million housing deficit.
Agudah told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that through the scheme, the company had packaged a housing programme for every Nigerian to own his or her house through normal payment of rent.
According to him, the scheme is designed in a way that the payment is spread within a specified period to allow the beneficiary conveniently pay at zero per cent interest rate.
He said that an individual must not have millions of naira to own a house of his or her own, but “any one who earns income has financial capacity to buy and own a house’’.
Agudah said that the company was targeting to build about 250,000 housing units annually and was working with a minimum of 50 developers who would produce a minimum of 500 housing units per year.
He said that the company was partnering major stakeholders in the economy like mortgage institutions, banks, investors, developers, among others, to ensure effectiveness of the scheme.
“The way to restructure and tackle the housing challenges is to design a housing scheme that will allow all classes of Nigerians to own houses.
“We are trying to re-shape the housing system for efficiency such that people can pay house rent and after sometimes own the house.
“Once a participant pays the first house rent, the person will have access to the house, while the completion of the payment is made within the specified period of years.
“With this kind of housing scheme, the government has no business to provide houses for the citizens, hence can invest other resources of public interest.
“When greater per cent of the population has access to a decent homes, the rate of crime and unemployment will reduce and this will lead to increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the economy,” he said. (NAN)
