Residential Satisfaction and the Organised Private Sector Housing in Nigeria

Abstract

Level of residential satisfaction has become one major user-end means of evaluating the success or failure of any housing project, programme or policy.  The increasing shift towards expanding the role of the market in the social and public policy delivery system of nations call for such evaluation in the housing delivered by profit-driven organized private sector in Nigeria.  This study therefore is an evaluation of residential satisfaction of residents of organized private sector housing in Nigeria.  The study, which was based on structured questionnaire administered on 1,950 beneficiaries of organized private sector housing estates, covered two states with the prevalence of organized private sector housing developers (OPSHD) in each of the six geo-political zones of Nigeria. Ten percent (1,950) households were randomly selected from the occupied houses (19,500) in the selected estates.  The structured questionnaire asked residents to rate their level of satisfaction with their housing in three broad areas of dwelling components, in-house services and neighbourhood infrastructure/facilities on Likert Scale of between 1 and 3; where “Very satisfied”, “Just satisfied” and Not satisfied” were given the weight  of 3, 2 and 1 respectively.  The data collected from the residents’ rating of their level of satisfaction were analyzed using the Residents’ Satisfaction Index (RSI) technique.  The overall level of residents’ satisfaction expressed as RSI was 2.31 while 11 of 13 attributes of the housing rated have RSI of greater than 2, with only two of the attributes having RSI of less than 2.   This study revealed that residents of organized private sector housing estates in Nigeria have high level of satisfaction with most of their building components, in-house-services and neighbourhood infrastructure/facilities as reflected in the overall residents’ satisfaction index of 2.31.  However, developers of these estates should improve electricity supply and fire service to enhance the level of satisfaction of residents of estates of organized private sector housing delivery in Nigeria.

Keywords: Residents Satisfaction Index, Organized Private Sector Housing, Residential Satisfaction