The willingness of cooperative societies to sponsor house ownership in Akure, Nigeria

Housing cooperatives are the organizations among others, which have played important roles in meeting the housing needs of people. In Nigeria, housing finance is through the formal and informal institutions; and personal residences accounted between 75 and 90 per cent of household wealth, that represents between 3 and 6 times their annual income. Finance is an important determinant of success and failure of housing ownership. It, therefore, becomes very necessary to identify viable sources of funding that can promote house-ownership. This paper examined the activities of Cooperative Societies in the provision of funds for house ownership in Nigeria with a focus on Akure. In the conduct of the social survey for the study; two sets of questionnaire were used. The first set of the questionnaire focused on House-owners and 683 sampled houses-owners were administered with the questionnaire in Akure. The second set of questionnaire was administered on the government officers' in-charge of the administration of the cooperative societies in Akure. The answers to the questions in the questionnaire were adequately supplied. The data were subjected to statistical analysis. The findings revealed among others that the main sources of funding house buildings were through personal savings and Cooperative Societies among others. It recommended that prospective house-owners should be encouraged to form and patronise Cooperative Societies as a reliable source for the housing loan.