Housing Policy Development: Lagos Real Estate in 2025 | Gidi

Nigeria’s real estate sector has rapidly become a pivotal contributor to the national economy. Recent GDP re-basing data indicate that real estate has surpassed oil and gas as the third-largest sector in the country. In the third quarter of 2024, real estate accounted for 5.43% of Nigeria’s GDP, only slightly down from 5.58% a year earlier.

This growth underscores the rising importance of real estate, driven by increasing urbanization and housing demand. The sector expanded 46.52% in nominal terms year on year in Q3 2024, reflecting robust investment interest.

However, this boom coexists with a massive housing deficit: experts estimate that Nigeria needs about 700,000 new homes each year to bridge a shortfall currently estimated between 22 million and 28 million units. Real estate’s emergence as an economic force, therefore, carries significant social implications. Addressing the housing gap is now central to Nigeria’s development agenda.

Lagos State stands at the forefront of Nigeria’s real estate activity. As the nation’s commercial capital, Lagos boasts of the tallest skyline in Nigeria and an eclectic urban fabric that mixes modern high rises with sprawling informal settlements.

Historically, Lagos’s housing policy trajectory began with bold initiatives in the early 1980s. Under Governor Lateef Jakande (1979–1983), the state launched an unprecedented mass housing drive, building more than 30,000 low-cost housing units in just four years. Estates in Ipaja, Amuwo Odofin, Surulere, Badagry, and other locations transformed from previously undeveloped outskirts into thriving communities, a feat that remains unparalleled by succeeding administrations.

In the decades that followed, various governments struggled to keep pace with rapid population growth. Public housing construction slowed during the military era, leading to a growing supply gap. By the early 2000s, democratic administrations recognized the need for new policy approaches. In 2014, Governor Babatunde Fashola launched the Lagos Home Ownership Mortgage Scheme (Lagos HOMS) to facilitate affordable ownership through low-interest mortgages.

The housing deficit in Lagos was then placed at roughly one million units, underscoring the scale of unmet demand even in the nation’s wealthiest state. Subsequent governors have initiated schemes of their own, although none have matched Jakande’s sheer scale. Today’s Lagos real estate landscape is thus the product of a long history of bold public intervention punctuated by periods of relative neglect.

With an estimated population exceeding seventeen to twenty million by 2025, Lagos vividly illustrates Nigeria’s housing challenges. The state spans a mere 3,600 square kilometers, making it the smallest in Nigeria by area, yet it hosts more than ten percent of the national population.

This mismatch contributes to a severe housing shortfall. Lagos accounts for the largest share of Nigeria’s housing deficit, meaning that several million new homes are required in the state alone. High population growth and limited land supply push residents into informal settlements and overcrowded slums; more than 150 such communities are documented across metropolitan Lagos.

Basic infrastructure, from roads to drainage, struggles to keep pace, resulting in chronic congestion and periodic flooding. Housing policy in Lagos is therefore not merely about shelter; it is about managing urban growth, economic vitality, and the quality of life of millions.

Effective housing policy is crucial to steering Lagos’s real estate market toward sustainable outcomes. Without a strong policy framework, market forces tend to favor upscale developments and speculative construction, often neglecting affordable housing.

Nigeria’s multi-million-unit deficit is widely seen as the product of systemic failures and years of policy inaction. Good policy can correct such imbalances by incentivizing affordable construction, improving access to finance, and guiding land use decisions.

Lagos’s experience demonstrates that government intervention, or its absence, directly affects housing availability, affordability, and safety. From the success of Jakande’s estates to the proliferation of slums during policy lulls, the evidence is clear: housing policy literally shapes the city’s skyline and its informal settlements alike.

• Low-Cost Housing Estates (Jakande Era): Sixteen estates delivered tens of thousands of affordable units between 1979 and 1983.

• Lagos State Development & Property Corporation (LSDPC): The state’s development arm has produced numerous estates since the 1970s, though output slowed in the 1990s and 2000s.

• Lagos HOMS (2014–present): More than 1,100 units were ready at launch, with thousands more under construction; the scheme offers first-time buyers subsidized mortgages over ten years or more.

• State Housing Programs (2019–2025): Nearly 10,000 units have been completed since 2019 across twenty-one estates; a further 4,000-plus are scheduled for delivery by 2026 in locations such as Sangotedo, Igando, Epe, and Badagry.

• Urban Renewal and Slum Upgrading (Lagos State Urban Renewal Agency—LASURA): Lagos aims to reduce its slum footprint by fifty per cent annually, with regeneration plans prepared for at least eight priority communities.

• Public-Private Partnerships: Joint ventures with developers, as seen in many Lagos HOMS sites, help the state leverage private finance and expertise; large private projects such as Eko Atlantic proceed under state approvals but mostly serve high-income markets.

The Lagos State Government and its agencies, Physical Planning, LASBCA, the Land Bureau, and LASRERA, act as both facilitators and regulators. Progress has been made through online permit portals and agent registration, yet bureaucracy, opacity, and weak coordination persist.

Obtaining land titles or building permits remains slow and costly, encouraging informal transactions. Pricing of government-built homes is frequently beyond the reach of low-income earners, and building collapse incidents reveal lapses in enforcement: a tragic Ikoyi tower collapse in 2021 exposed failures of oversight and signaled the need for stronger interagency collaboration.

Transparency, digitisation, and uncompromising enforcement of standards are essential if public confidence is to be restored.

The 2025 Lagos market is a paradox: cranes dominate the skyline, yet unsustainable development and inequality endure. High-end projects proliferate while informal settlements expand. Infrastructure is stretched thin, and environmental risks are growing.

A sustainable response lies in metropolitan planning and regional integration. Coordinating with neighboring Ogun State to develop new towns, affordable estates, and transit corridors can relieve pressure on Lagos’s limited land. Within Lagos, strict zoning, green space preservation, and resilient construction must become the norm. Development malpractice must be deterred through real-time inspections, tougher penalties, and a culture of compliance.

Lagos’s housing future depends on a collaborative approach. Government must enable, regulate, and enforce; private developers should integrate affordable units and support regeneration; financiers, civil society, and communities must all have seats at the table.

Regulation must be firm yet fair, streamlining processes while insisting on quality and safety. If Lagos aligns its ambitious plans with effective implementation, by 2030 the city could offer credible opportunities for first-time homeowners, a reduced slum footprint, and a skyline matched by well-planned communities on the ground. The reward is immense: a Lagos that works for all its residents and sets a standard for housing policy development nationwide.

 

 

Author: Ayorinde Ejioye, MNIS, MNIE, FIMC, CMC
Chief Operating Officer,
Gidi Real Estate Investment Limited.