As a means of increasing the financial capacity of Nigerians and unlocking the dead capital in the real estate industry, Finance experts and stakeholders have called for the use of crowdfunding in the nation’s real estate sector.
For them, it is another clear path to reducing the huge housing shortages in the country.
Leading the discourse, the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance Africa, said there is an estimated $100 billion worth of trapped capital in land that cannot reach access to financing in Nigeria.
Furthermore, the country is said to require about N16 trillion to address its housing shortfall, with Lagos alone needing about $25 billion to solve similar housing challenge.
A real estate investor and Managing Director of Lifepage Group, Oladipupo Clement, said such finance could be sourced through crowdfunding and could provide a million homes in Lagos and beyond by the year 2041.
According to him , a project-focused and real estate crowd funding platform like Million Homes, initiated by Lifepage, allows subscribers to make gains in cash and/or assets, while the capital sum is still intact.
Crowdfunding platforms like Million Homes, encourage quality service delivery to subscribers with global reach and national impact, while they make gains in cash and assets.
The initiative, he said, will reduce the housing deficit in record time through crowdfunding unlike the present practice that has seen a state like Lagos not being able to do a million home in 20 years.
Regretting the present state of mortgage system in Nigeria, Clement urged government to avoid creating policies that stifle businesses, but encourage citizens to get acceptable and affordable housing especially those at bottom of the pyramid, who constitute more than 50 per cent of the nation’s housing needs.
Also, a chartered accountant and Coordinator, Million Homes, Mrs. Felicia Omokpo, said crowdfunding is not new, but now technology-driven to ensure security of investments.
According to her, there are some forms of crowdfunding in the past but there are new technologies that make it more rewarding to investors.
Also, the Executive Director, Finance and Administration in Lifepage, Peter Adesanya, said crowdfunding presents huge investment opportunities for Nigerians to make higher returns in investments both in cash and kind.
“Although, there are some kinds of crowdfunding platforms in agro- allied industries, not much has been done in the real estate sector, thereby limiting the huge job potentials that could stimulate the economy.
“We need to build the need of the vast majority by targeting those at bottom of the pyramid by providing low cost housing”, he said.
Source: The Guardian
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