WILL 700,000 HOUSING UNIT BE ENOUGH TO MEET NIGERIA HOUSING NEEDS?

          A meeting was held in Abuja,the country's capital, by the Quantity Surveyors Registration Board of Nigeria, that not less than 700,000 housing units are needed annually to meet up with Millennium Development Goal(MDG). The housing production recently account for 100,000 annually which is over 17 million unit behind the stardard rate of growth and up NGN 56 trillion is needed to finance it. Mortgage financed contribute only 1% to the country's Gross Domestic Product(GDP) compared to 50% and 80% mortgage finances contribute to Europe and USA respectively. Only 5% of the about 13.7 million housing unit in Nigeria is contributed by mortgage finance which indicates that Nigerians depend on private savings to pay for homes. House ownership which accounts for 25% of over 160 million population compared to other developing and developed countries such as Benin, Libya,South Africa, Brazil, USA and Kenya with up to 41%,56%,63%,70%,73%,90%  ,respectively,of their population. This shows that Nigeria is really lagging and income is FAR not evenly distributed.
          It is concluded that Federal Government should encourage and finance current effort of board to develop a National Construction  Cost database which will promote accountability and transparency in order to give standard of price and cost of new homes for Nigerians to ensure success proposed masterplan implementation.