Housing Affordability Crisis in Port Harcourt Metropolis: A Comparative Analysis of Public and Private Housing Developer

Abstract

This study assessed both public and private housing providers of Port Harcourt Metropolis. A pragmatist worldview, mixed methods approach, and descriptive survey design was employed. Out of a target population of 1800 households heads within the ten estates extracted from 42 estates, 362 valid questionnaires (94.3% retrieval rate) were analysed with descriptive statistics and cost of housing to income measures using 30% affordability benchmark supplemented with six key informant interviews. Four hypotheses were tested using Chi-Square test of independence at 0.05 level of significance. The study established that private (57.2%) housing providers accounted for majority of the housing provision, especially middle- and high-income housing, with less contribution from public housing (25.7%), which was the most affordable with flexible payment terms but limited by bureaucratic bottlenecks; that housing affordability has remained a major concern with 53.9% of the respondents reporting housing as either expensive or very expensive, 52.8% demitting spend over 40% of income on housing, only 37.0% believe affordability has improved over time, 71.5% acknowledged that more expensive housing have emerged over time, Chi-Square analysis proved significant association between the type of housing provider and their affordability offering (χ2=73.35, p<0.001), with the three most significant dimensions that differentiate the two sectors being identified as: perception of affordability (50.73% contribution), perception of value for money (48.15% contribution), and perception of affordability as a right (48.15%), significant association between the type of developer and their challenges to providing affordable housing (χ2=127.14, p<0.001), with underdevelopment (61.59%) and abandoned projects (19.80%) being most critical, and the two provision for types of housing units (χ2=0.2006, p=0.999) and housing affordability among income groups (χ2=5.398, p=0.067) being not significant between the two sectors. The study concludes that increasing the rate of housing production does not necessarily lead to affordability especially given multiple interacting factors, and proposes market-sensitive, integrated interventions addressing: land administration, housing finance, infrastructure, planning, governance, and public-private partnership to attain sustainable affordable housing. Proposes measures such as income-sensitive policies and interventions, targeted subsidies, flexible payment terms, affordable housing targets for large developments, and reform of housing finance system to improve affordability across income groups.