It’s not a piece of news that the cost of building and buying houses in Nigeria has become higher and higher. This is due to the current economic realities in the country. In this post, we’ll be looking at the cost of building a house ot buying a house in Nigeria. What should you keep as budget before embarking on that house project.
What we’ll do on this post is to list the type of houses and how much it will cost to build or buy them. Since the prices of houses and lands aren’t the same everywhere in Nigeria, we are focusing on the cost in most rural and semi-rural areas in Nigeria. So, while reading, you should know that the cost will differ and would be higher in urban areas.
The cost is likely to be very high in densely populated areas like Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Calabar, Enugu, Awka, and so on. You take this post as what you should budget on the average. Now, let’s get down to the post.
The Cost of Building a House or Buying a House in Nigeria
There are different types and sizes of houses you can buy in Nigeria. One fact you should note is that the bigger the house, the bigger the cost and prices. We’ll classify them and present the prices and cost to you.
1. Three Bedroom Bungalow
To build a three bedroom bungalow in rural and semi-urban areas, you should keep a budget of 15 to 20 million naira. This might include the land in case it’s a plot of around 2 million naira. It can be as less as 10 million naira if there is land and labor in your area is cheaper.
By three bedroom bungalow, we mean three bedrooms plus a sitting room, dining area, kitchen, two toilets, a bathroom, and two verandahs. This estimate doesn’t include the fencing and gates. The fencing and gates are expenses on their own. However, wiring, painting, roofing, windows, ceiling, soak away, and others are included.
If you want to buy a completed one, it can be more expensive because the seller would add his own profit. You should hold extra 2 million to 5 million naira in case you want to buy an already completed one.
In addition, the more expensive your taste and finishing, the more the money. A three bedroom bungalow can be built with 10 million naira, 12 million naira, 15 million naira, 18 million naira, 20 million naira, and even as high as 25 million naira depending on your taste and finishing as well as location.
2. Four Bedroom Bungalow
Four bedroom bungalow is just adding one additional bedroom to three bedroom bungalow plan, and expanding the house. The cost is not so different, though. For this one you keep a budget of around 16 million to 20 million naira. The cost difference might just be a million naira from three bedroom bungalow. Be reminded that location matters.
3. Five and Six Bedroom Bungalow
You should hold a budget of 18 million to 22 million naira for this large house. It might even cost more because you would have to add toilet and bathroom. You’ll also have to add am additional smaller kitchen compared to the main kitchen.
You don’t have to spend this large amount of money building this type of house, instead you should use that amount to divide the large building into two blocks of two bedroom flats. In the next section, you’ll discover the cost of this.
4. Two Blocks of Two Bedroom Flat Bungalow
When we saw two blocks of two bedroom flat bungalow, we mean a building divided into two equal halves where each half is an apartment of two bedroom flat. Each flat has a sitting room, dining, two bedrooms, a toilet, a kitchen, a verandah, and bathroom. The cost of building this is about 20 million to 25 million naira.
We advise that instead of building six rooms bungalow, you should add extra money and build these blocks of flat. It will yield more money for you, and save cost of repairs in the future.
However, you have to ensure that your land and the location is an urban or semi-urban area before building this. If you build this a rural location, your family will be the only one to live in it. This is the same for all flats and self-contained apartments buildings to be listed here.
5. Two Blocks of Three Bedroom Flat Bungalow
In case you want to add one more room to the no. 4 discussed, it will lead to a higher cost. However, if you are renting it out, you make your money back. You should have a budget of 23 million naira to 28 million naira for this.
6. A Duplex Storey Building
In the literal sense and meaning of the word duplex, it is supposed to be a house divided into two halves for different families usually having eight to fourteen rooms. However, in the Nigeria context, a duplex is a storey building of about six to ten rooms.
This building is built by the rich for their personal use. The ground floor contains the sitting room, dining, kitchen, visitors room, stores, servants room, and some others. The first and up floor contains the master’s bedroom, children’s room, smaller sitting room, smaller dining, and so on. It is usually built for comfort. It has various designs and finishing, depending on the builder’s taste.
This type of house costs about 35 to 45 million naira to build.
7. Mansion
This mansion is more of like the definition of Nigeria’s understanding of duplex. It is usually a house of two storeys or more buildings with more than 10 rooms. What classifies a mansion is not exactly the size but the standard, finishing, beauty, and its size of land.
You can easily spot a mansion by its design and beauty. It is large and also well-furnished with accessories like a large land, a swimming pool, gym, tennis court, basket ball court, animal house, security quarters, and for Nigeria, most importantly, a generator house.
Finishing and designs takes most of the budget of this house. You should hold around 80 million to 150 million naira to build this type of house. This cost includes all that you have to add and install in the house.
8. A One-Storey Building of Four Flats
For this, we assume the flats are three bedroom flats. The cost of building this house is 35 million to 45 million naira.
9. Two-Storey Building of Six Flats
You should keep a budget of 45 million naira to 50 million naira.
10. Three-Storey Building of Eight Flats
Here, you should put aside a budget of 50 million to 60 million naira.
12. A Bungalow of 10 Self-contained Rooms
This type of house should be built in a student area, or places with lots of single people, you will rent out the houses very fast. For this type of houses, and it is profitable to build. You should make a budget of 30 million naira excluding the land.
13. A One-Storey House of 20 Self-contained Rooms
This one will also be good in a student or singlehood dominated area. You should hold a budget of 55 million naira for this excluding the cost of the land.
14. A Two-Storey House of 30 Self-Contained Rooms
You should hold a budget of around 75 million naira for this excluding the cost of the land.
Conclusion
This post has critically examined the cost of building a house or buying a house in Nigeria. You should read to learn. You have to note that cost and prices vary from place to place. The cost presented are just average estimates.