Femi Adewole, Managing Director, Family Homes Funds (FHF) said it would promote an alliance with relevant organisations to establish its Housing Finance Innovation Lab.
Adewole disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja at the 2019 Real Estate Development Association of Nigeria (REDAN) Building Expo.
He listed its partners as Universities, Primary Mortgage Banks, Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC), Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), REDAN and Cooperatives among others.
He said that the alliance would expand access to home financing for people in low income category in the country through home grown solutions.
Delivery a paper entitled “Affordable Housing for Nigerians on Low Income-Social Intervention’’ Adewole said that about 90 per cent of Nigerians were excluded in home ownership.
He said the FHF was focusing on two keys to drive home ownership which included `Help to Own Fund’ and `Rental Housing Fund’.
The FHF boss described the Help to Own as a fund which could provide payment loan to eligible buyers on concessionary terms to help enhance affordability.
He said that eligible buyers were required to contribute 10 per cent of the purchase price while the completion cost of 90 per cent was funded by a conventional 50 per cent mortgage from the existing mortgage lenders and 40 per cent loan from FHF.
“The FHF loan requires no repayment in the first five years; the borrower commences repayment on the FHF loan with a starting interest rate of 15 per cent per annum in the sixth year.
“In order to own the home outright, both loans have to be fully repaid by the end of 20 years.
Listing some of its potential impact and targets, he said the fund had significant enhancement of affordability for people on low income with spin effect of stimulating supply of new homes.
According to him, it complements existing home financing options like bridging the National Housing Fund, and commercial mortgages.
“We expect to write about 3000 loans in 2019 and growing up to 25000 by 2021.
On `Rental Housing Fund’, Femi said it believed that if effectively executed, the intervention would have the most transformational effect on housing market in the medium term.
“It has the potential to unleash supply and grow the housing developer market including new technology. It will boost possibility of tax breaks and other concessions.
The expert however said that real estate in the country would be doing to itself a disservice if it did not align itself with policy directives.
The Family Home Fund is a Social Housing Programme initiated by the Federal Government to provide inexpensive mortgages for low-income individuals and families across the country.
The high point of the expo tagged “Real Estate Development, the Bedrock for National Economic Stability’’ was the launch and hoisting of the National Real Estate Data Collation and Management Programme (NRE-DCMP) NMRC portal
