Developers Advise To Use Local Materials, As Cost Of Building Rises

The Group Managing Director of Experience Vision Creation, Sola Oyedeji, has advised developers to source building materials locally to reduce the cost of construction in the country.

Speaking at the launch of the second phase of the Riyadh Golf City project located at Aliara community, Asa Dam area in Ilorin, Kwara State,  he noted backward integration in the real estate sector would reduce the country’s housing deficit.

“I also use this opportunity to call on real estate investors to source building materials locally to reduce increasing costs. If we enhance local productivity in building materials, we can guarantee the solution to the housing deficit. Purchasing building materials from the market is becoming unaffordable daily.

“Currently, there is a total of 12 to 15 trillion housing deficits in Africa. So, private investors cannot do it. The government has to come up with a form of partnership to spell progress, development, and peace of mind for Nigerians and those in the Diaspora.”

According to the Oyedeji, affordability is the key word in reducing the housing deficit.

On the increasing cost of building materials, which he described as a big concern to real estate developers, he called on the government to provide palliative measures to cushion the effect of hardship on citizens.

While he commended the Federal Government on the establishment of a house mortgage facility, he described the lack of access to the mortgage scheme/platform as the bane of the programme.

“It is available but the terms and conditions have created bottlenecks around the scheme,” he noted.

He advised the government to revive the creation of affordable housing facilities for its citizens, adding that people no longer enjoy housing provisions in fully completed houses with affordable costs and instalment payments.

Oyedeji stated that the Riyadh Golf City was aimed at bridging the gap in the housing deficit in the state.

The Director of Operation, Experience Vision Creation, Gbenga Ibitoye, said that the firm had provided solutions to most of the housing concerns of Nigerians- land fraud, multiple-ownership, getting titles, documentation and land grabbing.

According to Ibitoye, the firm hopes to change the narrative of Kwara State by encouraging investors to take part in investment opportunities in the profitable venture of housing.

He averred that more than 250 young homeowners had been produced so far in the state, encouraging young ones to be homeowners.