CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Right from time, food, clothing and shelter have been the three most basic requirement of man of all these three requirements food and clothing are the two, which influence man’s life more than the house in which he seeks shelter, security comfort and dignity. It is infact where man starts and ends his dairy activities.
Housing is mainly the most import factors which determine the nature and form of urban settlements and the quality of human existence is directly related to it:
Housing: Is defined by Oyeyipo (1980) to mean, the provision of any form of structure, erection of building which is man made for the purpose of accommodating a person or person by talking housing to mean only shelter the definition appears defective as it ignores all those infrastructure facilities which housing brings along with it.
The world health organization committee on housing defines it as “the physical structure than uses for shelter including equipment and devices needed for physical and social well being of the occupant” 2 such equipment and devices include utilities and services like electricity, water supply, good access roads sewage and refuse damp facilities.
The fact remains that Port Harcourt metropolis has been the administrative centre for the then eastern region,
Port Harcourt metropolis is occupied mainly by government workers with low income. This position makes it difficult for them to afford the high cost of developing housing estates for their use. They therefore resort to borrowing from both formal and informal sources in other to find money for housing development and also Port Harcourt metropolis is made up of river line area, swamp ground.
The question then “Is the existing financial institutions in Port Harcourt metropolis enough to satisfy the demand for residential housing loans of these low income earner residing in Port Harcourt metropolis?” If not how can be situation be improved.
This research work therefore intends to the existing financial structure of Port Harcourt metropolis with a view to finding out how efficient it has been performing and proposing how the system could be improved.
BACK GROUND OF STUDY
Housing estates is a fundamental and essential features in the urban environment. Adequate provision of housing estates have a great deal of positive impact on both the economic and social life of the urban citizens and its inadequacy has the reverse effect.
The shortage of housing estate is one of the major problems facing the urban centres especially in the developing countries. Thus could be attributed estate development involves large amount of money, which is usually not within the capability of most urban dwellers particularly the medium and low income groups, the rate of housing estate construction often tend to be small and generally depend on financial resources.
This situation of financial scarcity is made worse by the rigid attitude of financial institution towards lending for housing development. Their system of granting loan make it very difficult for the medium and low income groups to benefit from the available facility. The bulk of the mortgage loans go the upper class.
This research work intend to look into the existing finance structure in river state urban, to find out if it is adequate to satisfy the housing needs of inhabitants of Port Harcourt.
1.3 OBJECTIVES OF STUDY
The objective of this study is to examine the housing estate finance situation of Port Harcourt metropolis with a view to
Assessing the existing financial institution
Ways of improving it
Providing decision makers
With a decision making tool