Talking Mortgage

the market in every area from documentation to underwriting to collateralization and mortgage dispute resolution. These are major issues we need to resolve”, Martins noted in a paper she presented at a real estate forum in Abuja recently.

Continuing, she said, “one of the most important benefits of mortgage guarantee is that it has the capacity to encourage the influx of investor funds, both local and international, into the mortgage market. A well-executed mortgage guarantee programme provides comfort to intending investors by signaling the presence of standards in the industry that would likely reduce the risk of losing their invested funds”.

In addition to all these, the programme also ensures increases access to housing finance; access to higher amount mortgages; better loan rate terms; market standardization and increased consumer literacy; more stable property values, and overall more stable and improved national housing sector leading to better economy.

It also ensures reduction of credit risk; expansion to new markets/ deepening of existing markets; reduction in capital adequacy requirements; enhanced access to financing such as portfolio risk rating, refinancing and securitization.

With all these in place, mortgages become more affordable to those who need it, especially home buyers; more people can meet their housing needs on their own; there will be financial system stability; more jobs and economic security for the citizens; better social inclusion and contentment for the citizens, and achievement of political and economic promises.

Like any other economic plan or policy, the programme which has proposed pilot project with Nigeria Mortgage Guarantee Company (NMGC) as special purpose vehicle (SPV) is not without constraints.

The project consultants, while cautiously optimistic about the viability of the project, have identified multiple constraints to its success and, according to the OFISD director, the biggest constraint is the 1978 Land Use Act.