Spatial Assessment of Housing Affordability Problems and Marketing Policy Improvement for Effective Housing Delivery in Asaba Metropolis, Southern Nigeria

Recently, there have been gross shortages in housing in Asaba. This has led to high demand for accommodation, consequently increasing the prices of rent. This study assessed the spatial housing affordability problems and recommended marketing policy options to improve housing delivery in Asaba. This study deployed a survey research design. A modified Likert-type questionnaire was designed and used as an instrument for data gathering. The area was stratified into high, medium, and low-income residential areas, and Taro Yamane was used to get a sample size of 400 respondents. The simple random sampling techniques were used to distribute the questionnaire. Data were presented in tables, and the Kruskal-Wallis test was deployed for data analysis. The results indicate that high land costs (81.9%), increasing cost of construction materials and labour (89.5%), limited access to housing finance (98%), and the activities of real estate speculators (97.2%) were among factors affecting housing affordability and were significantly same across the area at P > 0.05. The consequences of these include forcing many residents to live in overcrowded conditions (78.9%), spending a large share of their income on rent or mortgage payments (89.2%), and many residents resorting to informal settlements due to unaffordable housing (61.5%). Asaba housing marketing businesses are making use of internet marketing approaches, including social media advertising. However, 73% of the respondents disagreed that internet marketing approaches have increased affordability or lowered rent prices. It is recommended in this study that the government should tackle the problem of excessive interest rates and collateral to be paid for a mortgage. Also, subsidies by the government, rent control, and public-private partnership should be deployed by the government in the area.