COVID-19; the Nigerian Real Estate Sector Outlook

Nigeria is a Country of approximately 200 million population with estimated 15 million housing deficit and about 50% of the population are reportedly living in poverty. According to Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, the inflation rate in the Country has continued to skyrocket since January 2020 and attempts to regulate the situation has just been complicated by the corona virus (COVID-19 or pandemic) as the prices of crude oil in international market has crashed far below the Nigerian benchmark for 2020 budget. To further illustrate the dire situation, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected negative income for 170 Countries in the world with Nigeria’s economy projected to slide by 3.4% in 2020.

At the beginning of the year, many real estate experts have projected positives for the outlook of Real Estate Sector around the world with Nigeria not being an exception, particularly with the recent Finance Act 2019 providing incentives to Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) amongst other things.

Similarly with the real estate sector globally, the Nigerian Real Estate Sector is now expected to be affected by the pandemic with the stay at home order being enforced in some parts of the country. In fact, many Investors (Portfolio and Direct investments) are already adopting the wait-and-see tactics as a result of the uncertainty abound in the Nigerian Real Estate Sector.