Why Osun State's housing gap is now catching developers' attention
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With the Federal Housing Authority breaking ground on a 241-unit estate in Osogbo and land still comparatively affordable, developers and analysts say Osun State is becoming one of the more closely watched housing markets in Nigeria's South-West.
Nigeria's housing shortage has long been a headline number, but for the first time in years the country has something close to a reliable figure to work with: a federal technical committee set up under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development and working with the World Bank on methodology put the national deficit at 14.9 million housing units for 2025, replacing decades of estimates that swung anywhere from 17 million to 28 million units.
Osun State sits inside that national picture, and recent activity suggests it is becoming one of the more closely watched markets in the South-West. The Federal Housing Authority broke ground this year on a 241-unit estate in Osogbo, developed on 33.3 hectares along the East Bypass through a public-private partnership with Summit Group Limited. Designed as a mixed-use development, it is one of several federal housing pushes launched across the country in 2026, alongside similar projects in Ogun, Abia, Akwa Ibom and Kaduna states.
For private developers, the appeal of Osun is straightforward: land is more available and comparatively affordable next to Lagos and Ibadan, the state sits on a major South-West corridor, and government-backed projects are already testing the market and building supporting infrastructure. But the sector's obstacles are also well known. Mortgage penetration in Nigeria remains below 1 percent of GDP, compared with roughly 31 percent in South Africa and 77 percent in the United States, and more than 60 percent of the country's land area lacked formal title as of a few years ago.
Adekunle Ibraheem, chairman of the Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria (REDAN) Osun State Chapter and CEO of Evermark Homes, said access to structured financing and clarity around land titling are what determine whether a project gets built or stays on paper. "The opportunity in Osun isn't in replicating Lagos-style luxury estates. It's in building housing stock that middle-income earners and young families can actually afford, at scale," he said.
Analysts tracking the broader market expect Nigeria's real estate sector to keep growing, with one recent estimate putting the market at roughly $32 billion in 2025 and rising toward $40 billion by 2030. They note, however, that growth will be uneven across states, shaped by which local governments move fastest on land reform and infrastructure.