Lagos State Deputy Governor, Obafemi Hamzat, has advised young workers struggling with high rent to consider living with their parents, relatives or sharing accommodation instead of renting homes they cannot afford.
Hamzat gave the advice during a question-and-answer session on Nigeria Info FM on Thursday while responding to concerns about how a worker earning ₦100,000 monthly could cope with annual rent of about ₦1m.
He said young people should choose homes based on what they can afford rather than rushing to rent a self-contained apartment or mini-flat.
“Don’t let us misunderstand ourselves as a people. We are cultural people. Do you understand? So, if I start work as a young person and I’m not married, a lot of us live with our parents. A lot of us live with our cousins,” Hamzat said.
He said there was nothing wrong with starting small and moving into better accommodation as income increased.
“So, if you don’t start from the top self-contained, you don’t start from the top. You start from the average depending on,” he said.
Hamzat also advised residents to spend less than 40 per cent of their income on rent, since they still need money for food, clothes and transport.
“In fact, if you spend more than 40 per cent of your income on rent, it is too high because you must eat, you must buy clothes, you must do transportation,” he said.
He also backed mortgage financing as a better path to home ownership, saying Nigerians should stop trying to pay for houses at once.
“We cannot continue to buy houses the way we buy rice and yam,” he said, noting that Lagos has a mortgage board to help residents access housing finance.
Using a ₦7m property as an example, Hamzat said a buyer could pay 10 per cent, or ₦700,000, upfront and spread the balance over 10 years.
“Some people pay 25,000 monthly or 35,000, whatever it is, depending on your income,” he said.
He said this would help people who cannot afford lump-sum payments.
“That is the way to go because we know that a lot of people will not be able to afford to pay a one-shot deal,” Hamzat said.
He also urged young people to start with smaller homes and move to better properties as their income and savings grow.
However, Hamzat said financing alone would not solve the housing crisis. He stressed the need for better incomes and a stronger economy.
“What is important is we must also build our economy in such a way that people earn better, you understand, so that everybody can be uplifted, and that is the bottom line,” he said.
