February 5th, 2020.
In continuation of efforts to promote stakeholder collaboration towards the development of credible and reliable information on housing in Nigeria, the Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company Plc (NMRC) hosted a strategic workshop on deploying data to support the provision of affordable housing in Nigeria.
The workshop featured insightful discussions by participants and presentations from the Center for Affordable Housing Africa (CAHF) on a Data-led approach to Nigeria’s Construction and Housing Economic Value Chain, HEVC and Housing Economic Model (HEM).
Housing Innovation and Investment firm Reall, also made a presentation on “Reaching the Bottom 40th Percentile” while the NMRC team carried out a live demonstration of its flagship Housing Market Information Portal (HMIP).
In his remarks at the forum, the MD/CEO NMRC, Mr. Kehinde Ogundimu noted that data is critical to housing market growth. He stated that the dearth of credible information on the housing and mortgage market informed NMRC’s strategic decision to be at the forefront of developing and promoting systems that generate reliable data on housing in Nigeria for use by all stakeholders in the industry. This, he added, included the Mortgage Market System (MMS) and the Housing Market Information Portal (HMIP).
Mr. Ogundimu also listed other ongoing NMRC housing data development initiatives to include collaboration with House Africa on land titling using blockchain technology in order to institutionalize an immutable way of transferring titles and keeping the property transaction records tamper-proof and the development of an Electronic Mortgage Asset Registry System (EMARS) with the support of the World Bank.
Mr Ogundimu also noted that “All of these systems are to make sure that we have a robust ecosystem for the entire value chain of the housing sector. We are at the tail end of the value chain, but we are working to ensure that we standardize and control the quality and credibility of the data that lay the foundation for our refinancing operations”.
Also speaking at the workshop, Rev. Surv. Ugochukwu Chime who is the President of REDAN and the Chairman of the National Real Estate Data Collation and Management Program (NREDCM) commended NMRC for taking a lead role in driving the systematization of data as a basis for informed decision making in the Nigerian housing market.
He also highlighted the importance of the National Real Estate Data Collation and Management Program (NRE-DCMP) as a vital industry effort to collate and manage data for planning, pre-construction, construction and post construction activities in the real estate sector across the country, while urging stakeholders to build on the success recorded so far.
Mr Taofeeq Olatinwo, Head ICT and Business Process Operations of NMRC led the data discussion and needs assessment session of the workshop. As part of the needs assessment deliberations with Mr Olatinwo, participants unanimously reached a consensus on key data requirements, the providers and the frequency of aggregating the data in order to build a robust HEVC/HEM for Nigeria. NRE-DCMP and other stakeholders will work more closely with NMRC to deliver this, on a regular basis.
The Workshop, organized in collaboration with the Centre for Affordable Housing Finance (CAHF) and Housing Development Programme held at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Center, Abuja on Tuesday 4th February. It had in attendance officials and stakeholders from the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Family Homes Fund (FHF), Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN), Millard Fuller Foundation, Nigeria Institute of Town Planners, (NITP), Price WaterHouse Coopers (PwC), as well as international housing players such as the Center for Affordable Housing Finance Africa (CAHF) and 71Point4 of South Africa, World Bank – GEM, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Germany and REALL, from the United Kingdom.
More details can be found on the Company’s Investor Relations page of its website at www.nmrc.com.ng/investor- relations
