Why Lagosians Should Embrace the Proposed Monthly Rental Policy
Lagos State Government has urged Lagosians to key into the proposed Lagos monthly rental policy initiated set to kick off in 2022.
Speaking at the 2nd Lagos Real Estate Marketplace conference and exhibitions, tagged: “Lagos 21st Century Real Estate Investment Hub” organised by the Lagos State Real Estate Regulatory Authority, LASERA, Special Adviser to the Lagos State governor on Housing, Mrs. Toke Benson- Awoyinka said with the current state of the country, the government cannot really enforce monthly tenancy but need to create an enabling environment for people to embrace and subscribe to it.
She said; “With the state of the country, we cannot really enforce monthly tenancy. We need to create an enabling environment for people to subscribe to it. Once people understand how it works, people would rather subscribe than pay their landlord.
“The state government spoke to quite a number of financial institutions in a bid to gather funding at a very minimal interest rate, the same way we do it in the mortgage board and Lagos home scheme but we find it difficult putting those big funds together. We have various components like the insurance, the financiers, we have the landlords, we have the tenants and then we have the legal. We have put five components together as a state government to midwife the policy we made and make it seamless and easily accessible by citizens of the state.
On her part, Nigeria’s leading real estate company, The Address Homes, representative, Mrs. Olufunke Morunfoye who commended policy said: “It’s a good development for many people that cannot afford the humongous yearly payment. But our product is actually for all because we enable everybody that comes to us to have a home. With our flexible payment plan, lots of people that think they cannot afford a home in Ikoyi are doing so. Nigerians in Diaspora that complained about uneasy payment plans of other developers are compelled to come to us due to our subtle payment plan that is second to none.”
In the same vein, the Lagos State Commissioner for finance, Dr. Rabiou Olowo, reiterated that what made it important is because of its impact on society. “We did a rental experience survey and we found out that 88 per cent of Lagosians would rather pay their rent monthly. At that point, we felt that it was an important policy for the Lagos government to conceive and Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu immediately keyed into it. The solution will create resilience throughout Lagos. It is going to bring a lot of relief for tenants.
“We worked with lots of stakeholders, including landlords, tenants, lawyers, financial institutions. We came up with a fit of purpose structure that would enable us to launch a monthly rental model in Lagos. As part of putting it together, we have gone through a lot of risk analysis and risk evaluation to look at how it would work. We have met with a lot of stakeholders like: Landlords, tenants, lawyers, agents, we have financial institutions and we also have technical advisers that will come up with a purpose structure that will enable us to launch a monthly rental model in Lagos. We have gone through lots of risk analyses to know it would work. We went on to look at operational risk, legal risk and default risk. With all the insight we got from the survey, we came up with a model that would now be launched as the Lagos monthly rental policy. We put together with our stakeholders, especially the financial institution a N5 Billion portfolio to kick off this idea and we are welcoming more support from other financial institutions in order to raise the bar of the portfolio to be able to enjoy the policy”.
