Oyo-Ita to Speak on Affordable Housing at IUHF Congress in Washington DC

The 30th World Congress of International Union for Housing Finance holding in Washington DC on June 25-27 2017 will discuss opportunities and risks of investing in mortgage debt, including cross-border investments, funding alternatives to international finances capital, and tackling housing affordability challenge.

There will be high-level sessions with eminent plenary speakers drawn from different countries including Asia, Africa, America and Europe. Andreas J. Zehnder, President of the International Union for Housing Finance and managing director of the European Federation of Building Societies. Germany, Cas Coovadia, member of the Board of the African Union for Housing Finance and managing director of the Banking Association, South Africa and Sebastine Fernandez, President of Uniapravi and Director at Infonavit, Mexico will lead discussions at the first session on Regional Developments in Housing finance and the Economy. Other sessions will look at Global development in Housing and Housing Finance, Market Integration, cross -border issuance and investment (leading the discussions are Michael Lee, Lecturer at the Corky McMillin Center for Real Estate, United States and Chung Chee Leong, CEO of Cagamas, Malaysia.

Mrs. Winifred Ekanem Oyoita, Head of Civil Service of the Federation Nigeria, and MD/CEO, FHA Mortgage Bank, Nigeria will be speaking at the 7th session on the sub-theme ‘Tackling Affordable Housing Challenge.’ With the recent Federal Government announcement, that it would wave an initial 10% payment on mortgages below N5 million ($ 15,700) administered by the state -owned Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) targeting homeowners, taking out mortgages in the low to midprice range. The move comes on the back of the creation of the government’s family homes fund. The mandate of the N500 billion ($1.57bn) fund is to keep mortgage rates for affordable housing well under the average 23% targeting 9.99% payable over 20 years.