In a bid to deepen the impact of its affordable housing delivery programs to a greater number of Nigerian workers within the low and medium-income bracket nationwide, the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) has solicited for a more robust collaboration with State Governments.
This includes stronger support and participation of States in the National Housing Fund (NHF) Scheme, provision of unencumbered land for the execution of strategic FMBN affordable collaborative housing schemes as well as support for the elimination of high costs and systemic bottlenecks to title perfection and Governor’s consent to mortgage transactions at the state level amongst others.
The Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer (MD/CEO) of FMBN, Arc. Ahmed. M. Dangiwa made this case for improved affordable housing partnership with State Governments during his briefing to the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) on the activities, programs of the bank in Abuja recently.
Arc. Dangiwa stated that FMBN is strategically positioned to energize State Governments efforts to deliver affordable housing to their citizens in a sustainable and cost-effective manner on the back of its wide portfolio of affordable housing products.
This includes the National Housing Fund (NHF) housing loan of up to N15million payable over a 30-year period at best market interest rate of 6% per annum; and NHF individual construction loan at 9% interest rate per annum with a 15-year tenor. Other convenient housing loan products include rent-to-own scheme which allows beneficiaries to move into FMBN owned houses and payback in monthly installments over a 15-year period at single-digit interest rates with no equity requirement and the home renovation loans where up to N1M is given to NHF contributors who already own their homes to carry out necessary improvements and payback over five years.
Additional unique FMBN partnership advantages include the provision for zero equity contributions for housing loans below N5m and a maximum of 10% for loans from N5M to N15m.
The FMBN boss also said the partnership will enable State Governments to better take advantage of its strategic financing windows for real estate construction and decades-old institutional experience in social housing provisioning.
Some of the affordable real estate financing windows that Arc. Dangiwa listed include Estate Development Loans and the Cooperative Housing Development Loans both available at best market rates of 10% interest rates and the Off-taker Guarantee Scheme at 0.5% interest rate per annum.
The FMBN MD/CEO, in soliciting the support and partnership of the State Governors informed them that the current executive management has set the FMBN on a new path of reform, innovation, accountability, efficiency and high performance.
He noted that within the last three years of the current management – April 2017 to date – they have recorded major milestones with the notable ones being:
· Increased public sensitization that has led to a spike in registered contributors to the National Housing Fund (NHF) Scheme to 5,026,777
· Increased NHF collections totaling N134bn to bring the cumulative collections on NHF since inception 26 years ago to N366bn. The three-year performance represents 36% of total collections in the 26-year life span of the scheme.
· Increased NHF refunds to retired contributors to the scheme totaling N21bn within three years to bring the cumulative since inception to N32bn. This represents a 66% increase in refunds within three-years.
· Increased number of housing units by 7,740
· Increased number of mortgage loans provisioned to 3,749.
· Home renovations for 39,458 beneficiaries
The MD further solicited that state governments reduce title perfection fees, which currently range from 5% to 10% to the flat rate of 0.5% for mortgage affordability and expeditious treatment of consent to mortgage transactions by Governors to improve turnaround time.
In his response, the Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF) and Executive Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi thanked the FMBN MD for his insightful presentation. He noted that Arc. Dangiwa has made a convincing case for the collaboration and that the Governors are keen to engage further with FMBN as a strategic affordable housing partner.
