Nigeria moves to raise mortgage ceiling to N85m in push for 5,000 loans a year
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The Federal Government wants to lift the maximum mortgage loan from N50 million to N85 million and channel up to 40% of mortgage bookings to informal-sector workers, Housing Minister Muttaqha Rabe-Darma said at the national lands and housing council in Sokoto.
The Federal Government is proposing to raise the maximum mortgage loan available to Nigerians from N50 million to N85 million, part of a wider effort to widen access to homeownership and strengthen housing finance. The Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Dr Muttaqha Rabe-Darma, announced the plan on Thursday at the 15th National Council on Lands, Housing and Urban Development in Sokoto.
Rabe-Darma said the government is targeting 2,000 mortgage originations in 2026 and 5,000 by 2028. He added that between 30% and 40% of mortgage bookings would be reserved for workers in the informal sector, many of whom struggle to access conventional housing finance because of irregular incomes and limited access to formal lending.
According to the minister, the directive is intended to close the gap between workers' contributions to the National Housing Fund and the housing finance that is actually delivered. He also disclosed plans to establish a National Housing Finance Authority to coordinate regulation and strengthen accountability in the sector, and pointed to the recently launched Diaspora Mortgage Programme as another route to homeownership. The government, he said, is working towards building 100 housing units in each of Nigeria's 774 local government areas.
Lawmakers at the council pressed for deeper reforms. Abiante called for single-digit interest rates on mortgage loans, a review of housing prices, transparent and efficient land registration, effective development control and the introduction of a National Housing Identification Number.
The proposals build on the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria's recent numbers. FMBN collected N152.4 billion in National Housing Fund contributions in 2025, a 48% increase from N103 billion in 2024, and raised housing loan approvals to N71.5 billion in 2024 from N39.7 billion in 2023. In February 2026 the bank said it was targeting N750 billion in recapitalisation, with its managing director Shehu Osidi identifying undercapitalisation as a major constraint on financing affordable housing.