The Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI) says Nigeria can tap into the Moroccan housing model, which has helped the country solve its housing needs, to bridge its massive housing deficit problem.

Moroccan government has a huge dedicated housing fund deposited for housing needs from where banks are reimbursed in case of mortgage loans defaults making it easy for banks to loan to people.

The Managing Director of MOFI, Armstrong Takang who stated this in Abuja on Wednesday said Nigeria can learn a lot from the North African country in addressing the housing needs of Nigerians.

Takang however pointed out that MOFI through its Real Estate Investment Fund is driving a public-private partnership initiative designed to tackle the country’s 28-million-unit housing deficit.

This initiative managed by ARM Investment Managers offers low-cost, long-term mortgages (up to 20 years) to help citizens and developers access affordable housing at an interest rate of 9.75% per annuam with just a deposit of 10% of the cost.

Takang, who was represented by the National Coordinator of MREIF, Sani Yakubu highlighted the key objectives Real Estate Investment Fund to include stimulate the local housing market, provide affordable homes, and support the “One Million Homes” project.

• He revealed that the fund is mobilize N1trn intervention fund for the housing sector backed by institutional investors, including pension funds and banks, with N250bn raised so far and N75bn already deployed in the mortgage.

The MOFI MD said they are working with 20 financial institutions, 10 commercial banks and 10 mortgage institutions in this initiative and enjoined Nigerians to approach any of these institutions for mortgage.

He assured that once your documents are complete, within 30 days you would get an offer letter for a house at a location of your choice.

Reacting on the interest rate of 9.75%, he posited that they had moved from 24 to 9.75%, even as there are plans to still reduce it for civil servants.

Takang however stressed that they had vastly improved though not solved all the problems,but still working so hard to improve on it as can be seen from 35% initial fund deposit to 10% and from 5 years repayment to 20 years.

He pointed out that the Nigerian housing market faces a dual crisis of demand and supply, stressing that “To solve the supply-side bottleneck, the program introduces off-take guarantees, a mechanism that ensures developers access cheaper capital by proving to financiers that buyers are already lined up through pre-approved mortgages.

Takang concluded ”The toughest question developers face is: who is going to buy the houses?” while comparing the security of a pre-ordered product to a speculative one, he said “By giving an off-take guarantee, we stand ready to provide mortgages to Nigerians to buy those units, making developers more bankable.”