High Rent in Abuja: Causes and solution
Housing or shelter is a basic need of all human beings. Housing, which is one of the basic needs and an indicator of the quality of life that a citizen enjoys, also helps in creating conditions pertaining to health, sanitation and the living standards of the people.
FCT and Migration of people
Housing has become the hardest problem to solve in many countries of the world. It’s a problem many administrators and housing stakeholders in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital are also battling to solve. Abuja witnesses a huge influx of people into the city on a yearly basis. This migration creates huge housing challenges.
There is a large difficulty in getting rental accommodation in the city as the prices are so exorbitant that low income earners cannot afford them.
The Reason for high rent
High rent in Abuja is as a result of many factors. Some of which are high cost of land and buildings, inflation, high interest rates, high cost of building materials. When investors buy land or building, they try to recoup the invested amount through hiked rent for the property more than what should be charged . Sometimes its the agent who hike the rent believing that they can get a higher rent and also get higher The major reason is the cost of buying land in the city.
Some of them even borrow money from banks at very high interest rates, and the only way that developers can get back their investment is by charging high rents.
Residents move to outskirts
The high rent in the city centre has forced many residents to migrate to perceived less expensive areas such as Suleja and Madalla in Niger state, and Mararaba in Nasarawa state among other such places, where they can get comfortable accommodation for as cheap as N200, 000 to N255, 000 self contain or one bedroom.
The areas where these cheap apartments are located are majorly without good infrastructure like access roads and water.
A survey for a two-bedroom bungalow in Maitama, Asokoro, Wuse and Garki at between N3.5 million and N5 million per annum. Our survey also puts the cost of the same apartment in the satellite towns of the FCT such as Kubwa, Lugbe and Karu, among others, at between N1.5m, and N3 million per annum in private housing estates.
Strangely, there are hundreds of unoccupied houses littered in the city centres while thousands are either homeless or living in substandard apartments.
Vacant houses in Abuja
Unarguably, many of the private housing estates in the FCT have remained unoccupied years after they have been completed by their owners. Even though some are used as a store of value
The need to regulate rent rate
In a recent meeting at the State House in Abuja, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, called on the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers to checkmate the activities of real estate agents whose stock in trade was to take advantage of tenants in the city and the country at large. Also, a staff of one of the federal ministries, (name withheld) called on the government to help regulate the prices of houses and establish appropriate rent tribunals to check the activities of shylock landlords in Abuja.
She lamented the difficulties she went through over the years in trying to secure accommodation in the city.
Also, a resident of the FCT, Mr. Martins, advised the Federal Government to construct affordable housing estates in different parts of the country as it was done in the 80s so that the average Nigerians could have access to decent accommodation, without having to pay huge money as rents every year.
It is hoped that estate developers will also be a bit flexible with their terms of payment for houses, if that is done, the high cost of rent would drastically reduce in Abuja.
