Rent trap: How landlords, agents push Nigerian workers to the brink

August 12, 2026 1:04 am

As many Nigerians struggle to keep a roof over their heads, the housing crisis in the country is escalating into a battle for survival, with soaring rents forcing some workers to share apartments and others to live miles away from their workplaces. Shelter is gradually becoming something the average Nigerian can barely afford, UTHMAN SALAMI writes

For many Nigerian workers, having a shelter has now become a luxury. Some now sleep in their offices because they can no longer afford the daily cost of commuting from their houses where rents are relatively cheaper.

Forced to live far from their workplaces, they are trapped between crippling transport fares and a devastating housing market.

While some house seekers battle discrimination based on ethnicity, religion and marital status as landlords increasingly dictate who qualifies to rent their properties, others have turned their offices and business premises into makeshift shelters, unable to cope with the soaring cost of accommodation.

From exploitative estate agents to overbearing landlords, Nigeria’s rental market has degenerated into a full-blown housing crisis that continues to squeeze the livelihood out of millions of citizens, yet it receives little attention from policymakers.

Against the backdrop of soaring inflation, stagnant wages and spiralling transport costs, Nigerians, especially those living a little bit above the poverty line, are paying exorbitant rents that consume a substantial portion of their income, leaving little for other necessities.

Inflation, rents and tenants’ experiences

According to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, Nigeria’s inflation rate remained almost unchanged at 15.91 per cent in June 2026, compared to 15.93 per cent recorded in May.

The cost of housing and utilities, according to the report, also climbed, rising from 9.79 per cent to 11.19 per cent over the same period.

Using data obtained from NigerianPropertyCentre.com on August 1, rental prices across major Nigerian cities remain prohibitively high.

In Lagos State, amid high inflation, an apartment in Aguda, Ogba, was listed for as much as N9.5m per annum, while a mini flat in Abijo, Ajah, was advertised for about N1m per year, excluding agreement, legal and agency fees. In contrast, a fully furnished self-contained apartment in Yaba was listed at N350,000 per month.

In the Federal Capital Territory, a two-bedroom flat in Dawaki, Gwarinpa, was listed for N3.5m per annum, excluding one-off legal, damages, agency and commission fees.

Similarly, in Rivers State, a two-bedroom flat in an estate off Haruk Road, Rumuigbo, Port Harcourt, was listed for N2m per year, while a similar apartment in GRA Phase 3, Port Harcourt, was advertised for about N6m annually.

According to the website, which provides property seekers with access to homes, land, shops, office spaces and other commercial properties across the country, a single room in Elelenwo, Port Harcourt, was listed for N1m per annum.

For a young legal professional such as Abraham Moses, living in Elelenwo, Rivers State, has become increasingly difficult as rising rents continue to outpace his income.

He said the mini flat he rented for N500,000 four years ago now attracts N900,000 annually, despite no improvements to the property.

“I rented the apartment in June 2022. There has not been a single renovation in the apartment since I moved in. The landlord simply called me to say I would be expected to pay N900,000 for the next rent.

“He said other landlords in the area had already increased their rents. I was shocked, but what could I do? Move out and be forced to pay fresh exorbitant agency, legal and other fees all over again?”

In Lagos, a fashion designer, Nosa Peters, said his family was forced to vacate their apartment in Oshodi after their landlord demanded N5m as the new annual rent.

“We started building our own house about four years ago, but we couldn’t complete it. Rather than succumb to the landlord’s extortion, my family decided to move into the boys’ quarters pending when the main building is completed.”

Nigerians lament

To escape the crushing cost of rent and what many tenants describe as exploitative practices by landlords, a Lagos-based stylist, Adebisi Adeleke, said she was forced to share a two-bedroom apartment in Abule Egba with her younger brother’s friend after losing her savings to a travel scam.

She recalled that the scam wiped out everything she had saved, forcing her to return to her parents’ home and start life all over again.

“I was at the lowest moment of my life. I had just been scammed while trying to process my travel documents. I wanted to travel abroad, and I lost everything I had.

“So, I had to start life afresh. I went back to my parents’ house after living on my own for about five years. I needed a place to stay while I rebuilt my life.”

“The apartment was practically like a room and parlour, but you know how some landlords can be. They just want to make money.”

The apartment cost N700,000 annually, with each of them contributing N350,000.

Although she said they occupied separate rooms and shared the kitchen, the arrangement soon became unbearable.

“It ended badly. I left after one year. It is hard living in Lagos.

After her flatmate travelled, she said she approached the landlord to renew the tenancy but was shocked by the new demands.

“The landlord said the rent had increased to N2m. There was no renovation or improvement in the apartment, yet he insisted I must pay a fresh agreement fee and commission.

A fashion designer based in Kubwa, Abuja, Hadiza Jibril, also recounted how her landlord allegedly harassed her because she operated her tailoring business from home.

“He took me to court because he claimed he didn’t know I was a tailor. He said too many people came to the house to sew.”

She later discovered that the disagreement had little to do with her business.

“I later found out it was because I wasn’t buying the items his wife sold outside the house. The house belongs to a soldier.

“When I wanted to move my things, he demanded that I pay for another three months. I refused,” Jibril noted.

For Timi Adebola, a mid-level journalist with one of Nigeria’s leading online news platforms, the housing crisis reflects the harsh reality facing many young professionals whose incomes can no longer match the cost of accommodation.

“The biggest problem was that apartments close to our office were simply too expensive for someone just starting.

“Even for early and mid-career professionals, they were out of reach. At the time, apartments in places like Yaba and Ikeja cost between N1m and N1.5m.”

Unable to afford those locations, he and a colleague settled for Ikorodu.

“It wasn’t financially responsible to take a loan just to rent an apartment, so we moved to Ikorodu, which was more affordable.

“Even there, apartments within the N600,000 to N800,000 range weren’t great. If you wanted something decent, especially if you were planning to get married, you had to spend much more.”

He eventually shared an apartment with a roommate.

“We each contributed about N350,000 annually, although the initial payment came to around N550,000 per person.

“The apartment isn’t even that big, yet we had to keep reminding and arguing with the landlord before he fixed basic things before we moved in.”

Barely had they settled in when another challenge emerged.

“One day my roommate called to say the electricity distribution company had disconnected our wire. I couldn’t understand why because we had already paid for all the utility charges through the landlord.

“We had read the tenancy agreement carefully, and all those payments were included. Since we were on estimated billing, it wasn’t supposed to be our concern anymore.”

He said the experience exposed the lack of transparency in many tenancy agreements.

“It was difficult for me because, if not for my roommate, I probably wouldn’t have known what was happening.”

Another respondent, Sesan Ademola, a banker who recently relocated from Osun State to Ikoyi, said the combined burden of rising rents and transportation costs was making life increasingly difficult for workers.

“When I leave for work in the morning, I rarely get home before 8 p.m., even on days I leave the office early.

“I hardly know my neighbours because I’m always at work, including weekends.”

He added that the challenges extended beyond transportation.

“Electricity is rationed, so you never know when officials will come around. Then they started demanding connection fees.

“We refused to contribute because that wasn’t supposed to be our responsibility. I had to confront the landlord over it, and it became a major controversy.

Also speaking on the financial burden of housing, a Port Harcourt resident, Amos Orume, argued that the country’s housing market had become largely unregulated, allowing landlords to increase rents with little regard for tenants’ earning capacity.

He said many Nigerians now invest in real estate primarily to maximise profits, while workers bear the consequences through frequent rent increases.

“It is not a sustainable way to live financially. Ideally, people should be able to afford apartments closer to where they work without sacrificing their entire income.

“The distance is a lot, and although I try to reduce transport costs by being street-smart, transport fares are unpredictable. Bus drivers can wake up any day and increase the fare to N1,500.

“I have to be at work on time and meet my KPIs. Sometimes I don’t even have the luxury of negotiating transport fares because of time.

“In many months, by the second week, you’ve already exhausted your salary because you’re trying to save for rent and meet other basic expenses.

“That is how bad it is. It is simply not sustainable. We spend as conservatively as possible, yet it is still overwhelming.”

A shop owner on Akinsanya Street in Ojodu Berger, Adamu Shehu, said the soaring cost of rent has forced him to sleep in his shop after his landlord increased the rent beyond what he could afford.

Shehu said he rented a one-room apartment in Ojodu but had been avoiding his landlord after he announced a sharp increase in the annual rent to N1m.

“I have a room apartment in Ojodu. My landlord suddenly told me the rent had been increased to N1m. Since then, I have been avoiding him. That’s why I sleep in my shop and only go to the house when he’s not around.

“I know that’s not a solution, but I just need to stay away from him until I can find an alternative. For now, I will continue sleeping here,” he said.

The real issues

While the challenges confronting Nigerians in the housing sector continue to receive little attention from policymakers, an aspiring Lagos State lawmaker, Ayo Adio, warned that if the current trend persists, many workers may soon be unable to afford rent.

Speaking on measures to address what he described as glaring gaps in the housing sector, Adio urged the Lagos State Government and others to regulate the rental market, curb arbitrary rent increases and protect tenants from exploitative practices.

“We need to benchmark, especially for people already occupying properties in Lagos and other cities. We need to cap, first of all, the rate at which rents increase.

“So, if you’re already in a property, your landlord should not be able to raise your rent by the ridiculous 200 or 300 per cent that we see every day. It shouldn’t happen.

“The best the law should do over the next four years is tie rent increases to the inflation rate as published by the NBS. If inflation is 15 per cent, no rent should increase by more than 15 per cent. More importantly, rent should not be increased more than once within three years.”

He also called for an end to what he described as excessive agency, legal and caution fees imposed on prospective tenants.

“In many cases, the tenant has no business paying agency fees. It is the person who engages an agent that should pay the agent. What usually happens in Lagos is that the landlord hires an agent but transfers the cost to the tenant. The same applies to legal fees. That should not continue.

“Agency fees and legal fees should not exceed five per cent. We must cap them at five per cent without wasting any time.”

Adio further decried the widespread practice of landlords demanding more than one year’s rent despite existing tenancy laws.

“Many people are brazenly demanding two years’ rent or 18 months’ rent, flagrantly disregarding the law, because there is really no regulatory body enforcing these tenancy laws.”

To address the problem, he advocated the establishment of a rent tribunal with quasi-judicial powers to enforce tenancy regulations and provide quick resolution of disputes.

“It would function somewhat like the FCCPC. Once agency fees are capped at five per cent, no agent should dare charge above that. People should be able to quickly report offending agents or landlords, and the tribunal should swing into action.

“We need a rent tribunal that resolves tenancy disputes in record time, protects the dignity of tenants and ensures strict compliance with rent caps, fee caps and tenancy regulations.”

He warned that failure to implement urgent reforms could trigger a deeper housing crisis in the coming years.

“If we don’t act now, we’ll be in a very serious crisis four to five years from now. Working people will no longer be able to afford rent.

“As I speak with you today, people are sleeping in their offices because they cannot afford to go home every day. They now live far away from where they work because those are the only places they can afford, and transportation costs have become overwhelming.”

A real estate expert and public relations practitioner, Adeboye Abiodun, blamed the worsening housing crisis in Nigerian cities on what he described as unchecked collusion between landlords and agents, saying exorbitant commissions, arbitrary rent increases and weak government regulation have made decent accommodation increasingly unaffordable.

According to him, house seekers are now burdened with excessive commission and agreement fees, with agents charging as much as 20 per cent, compared to the traditional 10 per cent.

“The charges imposed by landlords and agents in Lagos, including commission and agreement fees, are alarming. It is no longer affecting only fresh graduates or young people; it is affecting every Nigerian and every Lagosian,” he said.

Abiodun noted that prospective tenants often spend one to two months searching for accommodation and must be financially prepared to make immediate payments, adding that some people now pay for apartments without inspecting them to secure the properties.

He attributed the situation to the absence of government regulation, saying landlords arbitrarily fix rents and often use the prices of newly constructed buildings to justify sharp increases in older properties.

He cited an example of a newly built two-bedroom apartment in the Ogba-Ikeja area renting for N3.5m, with an additional N1.2m in fees, arguing that owners of decades-old buildings now use such rates to raise rents from between N1.5m and N2m to as much as N3m.

“Our legal system also makes it easy to evict tenants. Landlords know they can serve quit notices before the expiration of a tenancy, leaving tenants with little choice but to accept unaffordable rent increases or leave,” he said.

He alleged that many estate agents lacked professional qualifications and deliberately fuelled rent inflation by persuading landlords to increase rents after similar properties in the neighbourhood had been leased at higher rates.

“It has become a gang-up involving landlords and agents. Many of these agents know little about real estate, yet they advise landlords to increase rents simply because another property has been rented at a higher rate,” he said.

Describing the trend as a growing social crisis, Abiodun said many young graduates now require at least N800,000 to secure accommodation in Lagos despite earning entry-level salaries of between N100,000 and N150,000 monthly.

He warned that the widening gap between incomes and housing costs was pushing many young Nigerians towards crime and other social vices in a bid to survive.

Meanwhile, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Townsend Property Investments Ltd, Morola Babalola, expressed concern over the continued rise in rents across major Nigerian cities, particularly Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt.

Babalola urged the government to focus on reducing what she described as the “enormous cost burden” imposed on private property developers.

Long-term solutions

Calling for urgent government intervention, Adio said the long-term solution to Nigeria’s housing crisis lies in significantly increasing the supply of affordable housing and making home ownership more accessible to workers.

He warned that unless governments invest heavily in public and social housing, workers’ incomes would continue to fall behind the rising cost of rent.

“Until we tackle the fundamental issue by massively increasing the supply of public housing and investing in social housing, wages and incomes will continue to struggle to keep pace with rising rents,” he said.

Adio urged the government to strengthen its mortgage system by providing guarantees that would enable working Nigerians to access low-interest housing loans with longer repayment periods and lower equity contributions.

“The government controls vast parcels of land and can provide them to developers alongside other incentives to build affordable housing. That way, the houses will be much cheaper than what is currently available in the market,” he said.

He further urged governments to redirect public funds from what he described as wasteful spending to investments in affordable housing projects and supporting infrastructure.

“Even if we start today, it will probably take another four years before these investments begin to yield meaningful results,” he said.

To address the problem on his part, Abiodun urged the government to introduce rent regulation, establish price benchmarks based on the age and location of buildings, regulate estate agents and create a dedicated agency to oversee housing transactions.

“This is not just a problem for young graduates. It affects virtually everyone because the majority of Lagos residents are tenants. Many people are practically working for their landlords, while some are still repaying loans taken to pay last year’s rent even as another rent cycle approaches,” he added.

Apart from supporting developers, Babalola said Nigeria should begin to engage in urban regeneration and the development of new, well-planned communities.

“Today, there is enormous pressure on properties in established and high-demand locations such as Lekki, Victoria Island, Ikoyi and other parts of Lagos.

“Everybody wants to live in these areas because that is where many of the jobs, businesses, schools and social opportunities are concentrated,” she said.

As rents continue to soar unchecked, leaving low-income earners to pay through the nose, stakeholders warn that unless urgent reforms are implemented, the housing crisis could snowball, driving more Nigerians to desperate and potentially unlawful measures simply to keep a roof over their heads.

Uthman Salami

Uthman, a Mass Communication graduate from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, has over six years experience in journalism. He reports crime to community-related news for Metro, business with a focus on the capital market and the oil and gas.

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