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Friday, June 24, 2011

Nigerians to own houses for N1.5m soon - Developers

Nigerians will soon be able to own houses for as low as N1.5m in the next one or two years, an investigation by our correspondent has shown.


 
Bungalows at Heaven's Gate Estate, Lekki, Lagos


At the moment, the average cost of owning a three-bedroom home in the country is about N5m, excluding the cost of land.

However, our correspondent gathered that key players in the real estate industry and some foreign investors were about to revolutionise housing construction through a partnership aimed at reducing the cost of building homes.

The partnership will focus on the application of cheap contemporary building materials and technologies that will make housing affordable for the low and medium income earners.

The anticipated crash in the cost of constructing the houses, our correspondent gathered, was informed by the relative cheapness of the materials that would be used, especially recycled plastic wastes.

The Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria and the Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute are jointly researching into affordable housing production with quality locally sourced materials.

Confirming the development, the National President, REDAN, Chief Olabode Afolayan, told our correspondent that the materials to be used would cost far less than the existing materials, hence, the reason for the relatively low prices of the houses to be constructed.

"We are currently experimenting, and in the next one or two years, the prices of these houses will fall to about N1.5m. REDAN has just signed a Memorandum of Understanding with NBRRI, and the institute is doing a lot of research for us. In no time, this will take off," he said.

According to Afolayan, the recycled plastic wastes will be used to produce Polyvinyl Chloride sheets for construction, as well as PVC pipes for water distribution, conduit facilities and tiles, among others.

He said because of the rising cost of building materials, REDAN was now fully committed to using recycled products, especially plastic, as cheap and safe alternative building materials.

"By our model, any plastic can be recycled for this purpose," Afolayan said.

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