Nigeria plans housing finance regulator to unlock N77tn market
Nigeria announced plans to establish a dedicated housing finance authority and industry regulator to attract private capital into a real estate and construction sector now valued at N77 trillion.
The Federal Government will create a National Housing Finance Authority (NHFA) alongside a new National Housing Industry Regulatory Commission. The twin initiatives are designed to reposition the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, deepen mortgage penetration, and bring millions of informal sector workers into the National Housing Fund (NHF). Minister of Housing and Urban Development Muttaqha Darma outlined the proposal on Tuesday at a stakeholders’ validation workshop in Abuja.
The reforms target an industry that has quietly become a pillar of the Nigerian economy. “After the rebasing of our accounts, real estate services alone account for about 13.4 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP, roughly N41 trillion. It is our third-largest sector, ahead of telecommunications and crude oil. With construction added, the two crossed N77 trillion in 2025,” Darma said.
Despite this scale, mortgage penetration remains shallow, largely restricting the benefits of this economic weight to a narrow band of formally employed Nigerians. A central mechanism to address this is the planned inclusion of informal economy participants. Under the new framework, traders, artisans, and other informal workers will be permitted to join the NHF with monthly contributions starting from just N5,000. This structural shift aims to dramatically widen the pool of eligible mortgage borrowers.
For market participants, the creation of the NHFA represents an attempt to build a more efficient pipeline for housing finance, improving institutional coordination and access to long-term capital. However, Darma conceded that the sheer size of the real estate and construction sectors has not yet translated into robust private investment. The primary constraint, he noted, is a lack of rigorous oversight across the housing value chain.
To correct this, the proposed National Housing Industry Regulatory Commission will assume oversight of developers and mortgage institutions. The minister framed stronger regulation as the essential catalyst for unlocking dormant private capital. “Dubai is smaller than Kano. The difference is not money. The difference is trust, and trust is manufactured by regulation,” he said.
The overarching National Mortgage Industry Policy aligns with a wider state agenda that includes land reforms, urban renewal initiatives, and public-private partnerships. For investors and lenders, the success of these institutional reforms will determine whether Nigeria can convert its massive N77 trillion real estate and construction base into a transparent, liquid market capable of attracting sustained capital.
