According to the web-based Wikipedia, ‘affordable housing’ is a term used to describe dwelling units whose total housing costs are deemed "affordable" to those that have a

median income*.

Western societies have found median incomes more reliable to work with than average incomes, because of the greater tendency for distortion where some in the group have

a disproportionately higher or lower income than the others. This would perhaps to be even more so in a developing country like Nigeria, where only 10% of the population

earn almost 40% of total nationwide incomes.

In addition, working with a median income guarantees that 50% of the group in question is covered, whereas working with an average income might not.

Although the term ‘affordable housing’ is often applied to rental housing that is within the financial means of those in the lower income ranges of a geographical area, the

concept is applicable to both renters and purchasers in all income groups.

In the United States, a commonly accepted guideline for housing affordability is a housing cost that does not exceed 30-35% of a household's gross income. This includes the

total incomes of all members of that household, usually the mother and father. Housing costs considered in this guideline generally include taxes and insurance for owners, as

well as utility costs. When the monthly carrying costs of a home exceed 30% of household income, then the housing is considered unaffordable for that household, since a

family is expected to have money left over for other needs.

According to the Center for Global Development (CGD), the average household income in Nigeria is about N50,000 ($330) per annum. This is the average income and not the

median income. However, due to the difficulty of obtaining reliable data including median incomes in our society, in Nigeria we usually work with average incomes. 
 

It is also noteworthy that income levels are normally quoted locally since urban communities for instance are likely to have higher incomes than rural communities.

To determine what affordable housing should look like in Nigeria, we shall use our CGD figure of N50,000 as the national median and take our projections from it. It will amaze

us how much day dreaming we have been doing as a nation, touting around expressions like ‘social housing’, ‘affordable housing’, ‘mass housing’, ‘housing for all’ when we

actually meant ‘exclusive’ housing or ‘housing for the few’!

Actions speak louder than words. And our actions in the past few decades have spoken eloquently to the fact that we may not yet have even begun our journey towards

providing truly “affordable” housing to the Nigerian people. Next week, we shall attempt to define what an “affordable” house in Nigeria aught to cost and what it might look

like, based on a true, internationally acceptable definition of the term, “affordable housing”.