Owerri Residents Groan Under Exorbitant Rents

For residents, finding an affordable rent in Owerri, the Imo State capital, is a Herculean task only achievable with huge financial war chest and the ability not to get offended.

Some of the residents told LEADERSHIP that it is increasingly difficult to get a new apartment no thanks to people relocating from the villages or from other states to Owerri.

According to them, they have to endure exorbitant house rents, greedy house agents always ready to trick accommodation seekers of their hard-earned resources.

Findings showed that prospective tenants pay for forms with house agents. And when any house is secured based on several referrals through other agents, the agreement fee is increased so that every agent can get a substantial share.

When renting a property in Owerri, the prospective tenant must budget for additional mandatory upfront fees apart from the annual base rent. Real estate transactions usually include: agency fee typically 10 to 15 percent of the annual rent but can be changed when the agents are many.

Onyinyechi Andrew who was recently transferred to Owerri by her employers, said she was inundated with excessive charges imposed by some landlords and house agents.

For a room ensuite with kitchen and bathroom/toilet in Nekede largely populated by students of the Federal Polytechnic Nekede, the price fluctuated between ₦180,000 and ₦360,000 depending on how new the building is, street location and proximity to the main road, good road, and availability of electricity.

The same room in New Owerri considered the prime areas in Ikenegbu, New Owerri, Port Harcourt Road, ranged from ₦400,000 to ₦600,000, excluding additional mandatory upfront fees on top of the annual base rent which will include agency fees, legal/agreement fees, caution/damage fees.

2-bedroom flat is between ₦1.2million and ₦2 million annually, while 3-bedrooms is from ₦1.5million to ₦3million. Some duplex are already above ₦5million.

These days it is common to see two families sharing a 3-bedroom apartment so that they can poll the rent together and live in town. A family takes the sitting room and another room while the other takes two rooms. They share the kitchen or one uses the passage. Such houses have two bathrooms/toilets which they share one each.

Onyinyechi said she had to pay transportation costs for herself and the agent to inspect any property, regretting that most times, they were inches short of pigsty.

She said, “This agent took me somewhere in World Bank and I asked myself if I looked like a loafer to him. You could see that it was a generator house that was quickly converted to a room, so dark and stuffy. I ran out for my dear life. I wanted a house not somewhere to die”, Onyinyechi said.

According to her, agents saw potential tenants as avenues for extortion saying “on our way back, the agent asked me if I had ₦3,000 and when I asked for what, he said he wouldn’t mind using it to buy chicken lap to chew. I just told him no, I may be looking for a house but I’m definitely not a conduit for his silly cravings”, Onyinyechi said.

An Owerri-based civil servant, Theophilus Chimaobi, accused some property agents of encouraging landlords to increase rents in order to earn higher commissions.

Chimaobi said the financial pressure eventually forced him to relocate from the city to a less expensive area on the outskirts of Owerri in Umuguma, adding that the road to his house is nothing short of hell.

He said, “The difference between where we live in Umuguma and Ikenegbu is well over ₦500,000, where do I get that from, and then still feed my family and pay school fees. But the access road has been under repairs for over six months. Every morning I wake up, I take a deep sigh of pain wondering how to transverse the trauma that day. If only the road is completed then half of my worries will be over because the house is modern but the road and transportation costs are choking us”, Chimaobi lamented.

Another resident, Ebere Chima, expressed concern that some two-bedroom flats in parts of the city were now being offered for between N1 million and N1.8 million, saying the development was making decent accommodation increasingly difficult for average income earners.

However, some landlords have defended the rising rents, attributing the increases to the high cost of building materials, property maintenance, and occasional levies to fix roads, transformers, and other things.

Meanwhile, the Imo State government has said plans are underway to build affordable housing estates in Owerri to ease housing concerns in the state.

Imo State Commissioner for Urban Development and Housing, Hon Bede Eke had in January 2025 told newsmen that the Housing ministry will be extremely busy because Governor Uzodimma wants to build housing estates.

Eke had said, “We are going to build massive housing estates to foster affordable homes for Imo people, especially the middle-class income earners. I can assure you that we are already working on it and in the coming weeks, the governor will make announcements about it.”