Nigeria to Raise Its Maximum Mortgage Loan to 85 Million Naira by 2028

The more useful signal is the disbursement directive, because that one binds now. Telling the Federal Mortgage Bank to push out at least 70 percent of the prior year's contributions is an instruction about throughput, not price, and it lands against a stated 2026 target of 2,000 mortgages. A system writing two thousand loans a year is not one you can rely on to complete a purchase on a seller's timetable. If you are buying in the next twelve months, price the deal as cash or developer instalments and treat a mortgage as upside that may not arrive in time. Reserving 30 to 40 percent of bookings for informal-sector workers also narrows what is left for salaried and diaspora applicants each year.

Build the 50 million ceiling into your numbers now and revisit when an instrument, not a target, raises it.

What changed

The maximum mortgage loan moves from 50 million naira to 85 million naira, with 2028 given as the date. Mortgage volumes are targeted at 2,000 for the current year and 5,000 annually by 2028. Between 30 and 40 percent of mortgage bookings are to be reserved for informal-sector workers, described as traders, artisans and the self-employed, a group the National Housing Fund has struggled to reach because its contribution model assumes a payroll deduction.

The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria was directed to channel at least 70 percent of the previous year's National Housing Fund contributions into mortgage facilities each year. The government also said it plans to create a National Housing Finance Authority to provide a more coordinated regulatory framework and strengthen accountability across the housing finance sector. No interest rate, loan tenor or eligibility change was announced alongside the new ceiling. Hon. Awaji-Inombek Abiante, chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Urban Development and Regional Planning, called at the same meeting for single-digit mortgage interest rates, but that was a recommendation and no rate was set.

The mechanism

This came out of the 15th Meeting of the National Council on Lands, Housing and Urban Development, held in Sokoto, where the minister chairs state commissioners responsible for lands and housing. The Council's resolutions are a working document for the ministry and the states, not a legal instrument. No gazetted amendment to the National Housing Fund framework was published, no decree number was cited, and no statutory instrument was named for either the new ceiling or the 70 percent disbursement rule.

That matters for how much warning the next move carries. A ceiling set administratively, through ministerial direction and the Federal Mortgage Bank's own lending rules rather than a published amendment, can be raised, lowered or left alone without a legislative step and without a consultation window. The 2028 date is a policy intention with no enforcement mechanism attached, and the same discretion that allows the ceiling to rise to 85 million allows it to sit at 50 million through 2028 without anything being formally reversed. Watch for a Federal Mortgage Bank circular or a gazetted amendment, because that is the document that changes what a lender will actually write.

Context

Nigeria's federal mortgage system runs on the National Housing Fund, a contributory scheme administered by the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria, which lends to contributors rather than to the open market. Commercial mortgage lending exists alongside it but is small and priced off the policy rate, which is why most residential purchases in Lagos and Abuja, diaspora purchases included, settle in cash or on developer instalment plans. The constraint has rarely been the published ceiling. It has been how little the system disburses against it, which is the gap this week's directive is aimed at.

Nigerians abroad weighing this against the window that already exists can compare terms on the FMBN diaspora NHF mortgage, read the 140 billion naira MREIF mortgage programme launched in August, and check how inbound funds are documented through a certificate of capital importation.