A Re-examination of Housing Investment Performance in Nigeria

Arising from the lack of a holistic performance analysis of housing investment in Nigeria, this paper re-examines the return-risk performance of residential property assets by focusing on the tier 1 property markets of Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt. Data on the rental and capital values of residential property assets, comprising bungalows, blocks of flats, and detached houses, from 1999 to 2022 were obtained from estate surveying and valuation firms in the three locations. Mean return and standard deviation were employed to analyse return and risk profiles. Variations in return and risk profiles were further examined using a four-year sub-period analysis. The return-risk ratio was also employed to measure the attractiveness of the investment. The downside risk measure of the Sortino ratio was utilised to determine the risk-adjusted performance of the residential property assets. The results revealed that, on mean return and return-risk tradeoff bases, bungalow investments had superior performance compared with other property types across the geographic areas. When aggregated, residential property assets in Port Harcourt experienced superior return-risk performance relative to other locations. On sub-period analysis, the study established variations in the performance of the residential property assets across time periods and locations. On the risk-adjusted performance measure, it was found that bungalows in Lagos had the highest risk-adjusted performance. Detached house investments across the three locations were also found to exhibit low downside risk-adjusted performance. The study concluded that investors could gain high and attractive returns when making bungalow housing investment decisions with a huge potential for downside risk-proof returns. Moreover, investors could further expand this potential by concentrating more housing investment activities in Port Harcourt, as returns in this location are insulated from downside risk. However, investors should be cautious when investing in detached house assets across the three locations, as returns from this asset might be susceptible to downside risk.