By Daniel Oluwatobiloba Popoola
The Federal Government has unveiled plans to introduce a comprehensive regulatory framework for Nigeria’s housing sector, disclosing that real estate and construction contributed more than N77 trillion to the economy in 2025 despite operating without a unified regulatory system.
The Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Muttaqha Darma, disclosed this on Tuesday, 28 July, 2026 in Abuja at a stakeholders’ validation workshop on the proposed National Housing and Built Environment Regulation Policy and the National Mortgage Industry Policy, describing the event as the final stage before the policies reached the Federal Executive Council.
Addressing participants, Darma said the workshop was not a ceremony but the last door the policies would pass through before Council, stressing that their input would shape what he presented and that he sought scrutiny rather than applause.
He explained that following the rebasing of Nigeria’s accounts, real estate services alone accounted for about 13.4 per cent of GDP, roughly N41 trillion, making it the country’s third-largest sector ahead of telecommunications and crude oil, and that construction pushed the combined figure past N77 trillion in 2025.
He lamented, however, that the sector remained largely unregulated despite its size, leaving Nigerians exposed to fraud and poor consumer protection. Questioning what government earned from the sector and what protection citizens received, he said the returns were almost nothing, recalling that regulation had stabilised banking, grown telecom lines from under half a million to over 200 million, and transformed petroleum and power, yet housing remained the sector where fraudsters could vanish with victims’ savings unpunished.
Citing Dubai’s example, the minister said the city made escrow accounts compulsory in 2007 and established a Real Estate Regulatory Agency to license developers and publish property data, enabling it to record over 270,000 transactions worth about $250 billion in 2025. Though smaller than Kano, he said, Dubai’s advantage was trust, manufactured through regulation.
Darma also raised concerns over building collapses, disclosing that Nigeria had recorded more than 650 collapses and over 1,600 deaths since 1974. He said those figures represented funerals, not statistics, noting that nearly every collapsed building had a licensed designer, builder and approving officer on paper, yet nobody was punished.
He further criticised the mortgage system, noting that six million Nigerians contributed to the National Housing Fund, with the Federal Mortgage Bank collecting N120 billion to N150 billion yearly yet booking fewer than 500 mortgages. Nigeria’s mortgage-to-GDP ratio, he said, stood at 0.02 to 0.07 per cent, against 30 per cent in South Africa and 70 per cent in Britain, a gap he blamed on poor structure rather than poverty.
According to Darma, the proposed regulation policy rests on six pillars: licensing of developers and agents, escrow protection for buyers’ funds, professional registration and construction quality, land administration and value capture, urban renewal without displacement, and a National Housing Data Observatory.
He added that it proposed a National Housing Industry Regulatory Commission with oversight powers similar to the NCC and NERC.
The proposed mortgage policy, he said, would establish a National Housing Finance Authority, reform the Federal Mortgage Bank, extend the National Housing Fund to traders, artisans and commercial drivers contributing from N5,000 monthly, and create a diaspora housing investment window.
He disclosed that the ministry’s Technical Committee had adopted the World Bank Adequate Housing Index and the UN-Habitat Household Crowding Index to settle Nigeria’s housing deficit, long disputed at between 15 and 28 million units.
Using both indices, he said, the committee put the core deficit at about 15 million units, with the North-West and North-East under heaviest pressure, and urged participants to challenge the methodology.
Darma said participants would deliberate through five technical breakout sessions covering market entry and professional integrity, buyer and tenant protection, housing finance reform, land administration and urban renewal, and housing data, with each group’s recommendations fed into the final documents before submission to the Federal Executive Council.
The development comes as the ministry intensifies efforts to reform the sector through new regulatory and mortgage policies aimed at improving consumer protection, attracting investment and strengthening housing finance, alongside its push for a National Housing Industry Regulatory Commission and a National Housing Finance Authority.
Nigeria has long grappled with a housing deficit, weak mortgage penetration and the absence of a regulatory framework for developers and agents.
The government said the proposed reforms, alongside the new Data Observatory, were meant to provide reliable housing data, curb fraud, improve mortgage access and support evidence-based policymaking.
