ANALYSIS OF THE CONSTRAINT TO PRIVATE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT IN MINNA URBAN, NIGER STATE, NIGERIA

Abstract

The complexity of constraints to housing development varies from one nation to the other. Housing inadequacy in Nigeria is rapidly growing especially at urban centres and private’s efforts to provide support to the government has not yielded desired result. The study therefore aimed at analysing the constraints to private housing development in Minna urban with a view to identifying the extent to which these constraints have affected private housing sector. The study population comprised both corporate and professional developers in Minna and the study employed closed and open-ended questionnaires to collect relevant information for the study. The study employed both simple random sampling techniques for the professional and corporate real estate developers respectively in Minna. The study therefore administered 396 questionnaires and eventually 300 questionnaires were returned and analyzed for the study using both descriptive and inferential statistical method of data analysis. The result of descriptive analysis revealed that there was wider gap between proposed average units of housing development and actual units development among the corporate developers. Furthermore, the study also found a significant gap between the approved grant for development and actual development. The likert scale analysis of factors or constraints responsible for this gap revealed that four factors out of twenty-three factors identified for this, were major factors affecting private housing development, these include poor government policies (4.95) poor housing market development (4.87) inadequate supply of affordable land (4.81) and delay in processing building permission (4.72). The analysis of inferential method using factor analysis identified institutional, financial, economic, technical, bureaucratic and legal constraints were found as major constraint to private housing development. The result of regression analysis showed that 70% variation in private housing development in Minna is caused by seven identified constraints factors. The study concludes that clear disparity in trends between the proposed corporate estate development and total number of approval granted for development over the period of 2009-2019 has been attributed to aforementioned constraints. The study therefore recommends that government should address the economic and financial constraints to private housing development by granting subsidy, and lower interest rate on housing loan, and encouraged mortgage loans for private housing development while also creating access to developable land for private housing development.