NEWS
Live With Your Parents or Relatives If You Can’t Afford Expensive Rent — Lagos Deputy Governor, Obafemi Hamzat Advises Young Workers
The Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Obafemi Hamzat, has advised young Nigerians, particularly those just beginning their careers, not to place themselves under unnecessary financial pressure by rushing to rent expensive apartments they cannot comfortably afford.
Hamzat said young workers earning modest salaries should consider more affordable living arrangements, including staying with their parents, relatives or sharing accommodation with others, while working towards financial stability, savings and eventual home ownership.
The deputy governor gave the advice on Thursday during a question-and-answer session with Nigeria Info FM, where he addressed growing concerns over the rising cost of accommodation in Lagos and the difficulty many young workers face in securing decent housing.
The discussion centred on the reality facing low-income earners in the commercial capital, particularly young people earning salaries that appear grossly insufficient when compared with the cost of annual rent.
Hamzat was specifically asked how a 22-year-old earning N₦100,000 monthly could realistically afford a self-contained apartment or mini-flat costing about ₦1 million per year.
Responding, the deputy governor urged young people to avoid trying to begin their independent lives from the highest level of comfort, stressing that accommodation choices should reflect one’s current financial capacity.
“Don’t let us misunderstand ourselves as a people. We are cultural people. Do you understand?
“So, if I start work as a young person and I’m not married, a lot of us live with our parents. A lot of us live with our cousins,” Hamzat said.
He maintained that living with family members while building one’s finances should not be viewed as a failure, noting that such arrangements are common in other parts of the world.
“You know, go to Turkey, for example, and see how young people also live,” he said.
According to Hamzat, young workers should not feel compelled to immediately move into self-contained apartments simply because they have started working, especially when their salaries cannot sustain such a lifestyle.
Instead, he advised them to start from accommodation levels they can genuinely afford and gradually improve their living conditions as their incomes increase.
“So, if you don’t start from the top self-contained, you don’t start from the top. You start from the average depending on,” the deputy governor said.
Don’t Spend Most of Your Salary on Rent:-
Hamzat also warned against spending an excessive portion of one’s income on accommodation, arguing that rent is only one of several financial responsibilities facing workers.
He said residents should ideally avoid committing more than 40 per cent of their income to rent, as they must also provide for food, transportation, clothing and other essential needs.
“In fact, if you spend more than 40 per cent of your income on rent, it is too high because you must eat, you must buy clothes, you must do transportation,” he said.
His comments come at a time when the high cost of rent in Lagos has become a major source of concern for workers and residents, with many tenants forced to make large upfront payments for accommodation despite earning relatively modest monthly salaries.
Hamzat Pushes Mortgage System as Path to Home Ownership:-
Beyond the immediate challenge of rent, the deputy governor said Lagos State was pursuing mortgage financing as a more sustainable pathway to home ownership.
He argued that the traditional practice of expecting prospective homeowners to pay the full cost of a property at once was unrealistic for many Nigerians.
“But, you know, the challenge is we cannot continue to buy houses the way we buy rice and yam. Do you understand?
“So, we must buy properties using a mortgage, and that’s why we have a mortgage board in Lagos,” Hamzat said.
He explained that the mortgage system would allow qualified residents to make an initial payment and spread the remaining cost of a property over several years.
According to him, proper identification and financial assessment of applicants would be necessary to determine whether they have the capacity to repay housing loans.
Hamzat said the Lagos State Residents Registration Agency (LASRRA) number was an important part of the process because it helps the government establish information about a resident’s identity, address and place of employment.
“So, that’s why we said people must have LASRRA number, so we can know that, okay, you live in Lagos. This is where you live. This is your address. This is where you work.
“So that there is a credit bill that checks everything that says, okay, you can pay,” he said.
₦7 Million Property Can Be Paid for Over 10 Years:-
To illustrate how the mortgage arrangement could work, Hamzat gave an example of a property valued at ₦7 million.
He explained that rather than producing the entire amount immediately, a prospective buyer could make a 10 per cent initial payment of N₦700,000 and spread the outstanding balance over a period of 10 years.
“So, if a flat in Bisedi, which is seven million naira, you pay 10 per cent with 700,000, and over 10 years, you are able to pay monthly,” he said.
The deputy governor added that the amount paid monthly could depend largely on the income and financial capacity of the individual.
“Some people pay 25,000 monthly or 35,000, whatever it is, depending on your income,” Hamzat said.
He stressed that such a financing model was necessary because many Lagos residents simply could not afford to purchase houses through a single lump-sum payment.
“That is the way to go because we know that a lot of people will not be able to afford to pay a one-shot deal,” he said.
Start Small, Save and Grow:-
Hamzat further encouraged young people to embrace a gradual approach to financial growth, saying there was nothing wrong with starting with a small property or modest accommodation and progressing over time.
He said the ability to save was particularly important, as a consistent savings culture could also demonstrate a person’s financial discipline and capacity.
“But the bottom line is, like I said, the culture of ability to save, so that if people see that you can save money, then I can give you a property.
“It doesn’t have to be, if you are a young person, you can start with one bedroom or even a self-contained, like you explained,” he said.
While advising young people to live according to their financial means, Hamzat acknowledged that the broader issue of housing affordability could not be separated from the state of the economy.
He said Nigerians ultimately needed to earn better incomes to cope with the rising cost of living and improve their standard of living.
“What is important is we must also build our economy in such a way that people earn better, you understand, so that everybody can be uplifted, and that is the bottom line,” he said.
According to him, a more stable economy would help make the prices of goods and services more predictable, allowing individuals and families to plan their finances with greater certainty.
“The cost of buying things is what we need to fix first, and then when we fix that, which is what the Federal Government is doing now, then we’ll be able to talk a lot more about other pillars that stop on top of that,” Hamzat said.
Lagos State has in the past promoted mortgage-based housing initiatives, including LagosHOMS, designed to help residents move towards home ownership through arrangements such as rent-to-own, with payments spread across several years.
The state government has also continued to identify mortgage financing and other innovative funding mechanisms as important tools for making home ownership more accessible.
Hamzat’s message to young workers, however, was clear: financial independence does not have to begin with an expensive apartment. Starting small, living within one’s means, building a savings culture and gradually working towards home ownership may offer a more realistic path for young people navigating the harsh realities of Lagos’ increasingly expensive housing market.