The Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Muttaqha Darma, has announced plans to reform Nigeria’s housing sector through a new regulatory framework aimed at protecting homebuyers, restoring investor confidence and promoting a more transparent and accountable real estate market.
The minister made this known while delivering a keynote address titled: “Nigeria’s Housing Sector at a Crossroads: Confronting the Mortgage Failure, the Rent Crisis, the Unregulated Market, and the Road to a Sector That Finally Works for Nigerians”, at the BusinessDay Abuja Real Estate Conference 2026, held in Abuja.
He lamented that many Nigerians continue to lose their life savings to unlicensed developers, while buyers remain largely unprotected due to the absence of escrow arrangements and other regulatory safeguards.
He also noted that despite the real estate sector contributing about 13.36 per cent of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), making it one of the country’s largest economic sectors, the absence of a comprehensive regulatory framework continues to undermine investment and public confidence.
According to Darma, the ministry is developing a national housing and built environment regulation policy that will introduce developer licensing, escrow protection for buyers’ funds, construction quality assurance, professional registration and a national housing industry data observatory to improve transparency and accountability across the sector.
