The public-private partnership in provision of Housing in Nigeria is yielding positive results, with the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, commissioning a new housings estate, ASO Grove Estate on Friday.
At the commissioning of the estate in Maitama, the Minister of the FCT, Senator Bala Mohammed, identified the need to set up more mortgage institutions to drive the financing needs of Nigerians.
The Minister said that expanding the housing sector would ensure a quick realisation of the single digit interest rate in Nigeria.
Nigeria’s foremost mortgage institution, ASO Savings and Loans, built the 60 units of five bedrooms estate in Abuja as part of its contribution towards reducing the housing deficit.
ASO Grove Estate, built in Maitama, a highbrow area of Abuja, consists of 60 units of detached duplexes with five bedrooms and one room maid’s quarters each exquisitely built on a 750 square meters plot of land.
The estate comes with world class maintenance and also recreational facilities – a clubhouse, swimming pools, gymnasiums, tennis, squash and basketball courts – all targeted towards solving the housing needs in the FCT.
Since its establishment in 1997, the ASO Savings and Loans has worked to fill the vacuum created by the mortgage sector in Nigeria, raising its mortgage assets from 3.3 billion Naira in 2006 to over 35 billion Naira in 2014.
The management of the mortgage said the units of housing, already all sold out, were just part of the numerous housing constructions the mortgage financier had engaged in across eight states.
The target of the company is to spread to seven more states by the end of year and hit a 500,000 housing units limit by 2016.