RESIDENTS’ PERCEPTION OF INDOOR SPACE QUALITY IN PUBLIC HOUSING IN AKURE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Housing is an essential need to a man and its affordability is of a great concern to any prospective homeowner. However, there are a lot of constraints that are wrestling with housing affordability. This study focused on the assessments of those constraints to Housing Affordability in Benin City, Edo State. As a growing capital city in a third world country, Benin metropolis is experiencing acute housing affordability problem. Data was collected from questionnaire administered to 398 respondents in the study area. From the Data analysis, it was revealed that lack of finance, High cost of Building Materials and high rate of urbanization are mostly the constraints to housing affordability in Benin Metropolis. The conclusion and recommendation are that: Government should play a pivotal role by taken steps that will open up rural areas, provide employment opportunities order to stem the mass drift from rural areas to already over populated urban cities. Survey technique was used, data was collected from questionnaire administered to 398 respondents in the study area. From the data analysis, majority of the respondents in the study area, were low income earners. It was discovered that there was high rate of unemployment in the study area. The study also revealed that the income of the households and cost of housing constitutes major constraints to housing affordability in Benin City. Other constraints to housing affordability in the study area are: inability of the residents in the study to access mortgage or housing loan and high cost of building materials. It was recommended that government should reform the mortgage system to facilitate credit expansion, especially to low and medium income earners. The development of local building material will reduce over dependent on foreign building materials for the construction of housing in Nigeria. In conclusion, cost of housing and income are major constraints to housing affordability in the study area. Households in the study area face housing constraints arising from the interaction of a wide variety of factors both within and outside housing sector.