- Engages 20 banks on disbursement
BY COBHAM NSA – The Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI) is currently partnering with 20 banks to disburse a ₦1 trillion private-sector-led mortgage scheme designed to address Nigeria’s 20-million-unit housing deficit and stimulate broader economic growth towards achieving the one trillion dollar economic agenda of President Bola Tinubu.
The intervention that is restructuring Nigeria’s mortgage landscape, also offers affordable, long-term mortgages at single-digit interest rates (approx. 9.75%–10%), and provides repayment terms stretching to between 20 and 25 years.
According to Executive Director at MOFI, Sani Yakubu, since March 2025, the MOFI Real Estate Investment Fund (MREIF) has delivered more than 1,000 mortgages valued at over ₦75 billion in a scheme that would ultimately increase home ownership for Nigerians.
Yakubu, who spoke at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of Finance Correspondents Association of Nigeria (FICAN) in Abuja, said Nigeria’s housing sector is already showing strong signs of growth under the current reforms, explaining that the fund not only works with the private sector but also receives support from government-backed initiatives.
He disclosed that the programme, which has one trillion Naira worth of projects registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), will be released in tranches, and in a manner that provides a sustainable roadmap for affordable housing and capital flow within the Nigerian economy.
Yakubu, who is also the National Coordinator of MREIF, said 20 financial institutions, comprising 10 commercial banks and 10 mortgage banks, are currently participating in the programme to provide mortgages to Nigerians, adding that the first tranche of ₦250 billion was successfully raised by March 2025 with about 75 billion Naira already deployed into the mortgage sector.
The MOFI Executive Director further said: “For the first time in the history of Nigeria, 10 billion Naira worth of mortgages have been done month to month since March. We have been doing an average of 10 billion every month in mortgages,” he added.
Citing A.G. Mortgage, a 21-year-old institution, which recorded ₦6.7 billion in mortgage transactions between March and December last year, Yakubu said, “The business it did from March of last year to December is more than all the business it did in its 20 years of existence.”
He said the development is a sign that the reforms in the housing finance sector are beginning to yield strong results, with increased access to mortgages and improved investor confidence in the real estate market.
On bridging the existing supply gap, Yakubu noted that the Nigerian housing market faces a dual crisis of demand and supply, saying the supply-side bottleneck would be readily tackled if the program introduces off-take guarantees as a mechanism that ensures developers access cheaper capital by proving to financiers that buyers are already lined up through pre-approved mortgages.
Yakubu said that comparing the security of a pre-ordered product to a speculative one, ”The toughest question developers face is: who is going to buy the houses?”, adding: “By giving an off-take guarantee, we stand ready to provide mortgages to Nigerians to buy those units, making developers more bankable.”
He said the idea is to recalibrate the system and replace the prohibitive 5-year repayment cycles in the nation’s commercial banking sector with 20-year long-term mortgages that gives Nigerians the opportunity to handle their housing issues devoid of unnecessary financial stress
