Analysis of Investment Performance of Residential Property in Government Housing Estates in Akure, Nigeria

Residential property is one of the basic human needs; hence real estate investments are consistently faced with the types of property and the place to invest because property values are not uniformly distributed in cities. This paper focuses on the diachronic development of spatial morphologies of property values within the same neighbourhood in Akure - a medium sized city in south western Nigeria. The thrust of the paper is to compare the investment performance of residential properties in both Ijapo and Alagbaka Housing Estates which are Government Residential Areas (G.R.A) in Akure Nigeria. Part of the objectives of this study is to identify the types of residential properties, examine the growth in rental values and identify the kind of trends residential property values follow in these two neighbourhoods. To achieve this, a survey was conducted on practicing estate surveying and valuation firms in Akure to get information on rental values of residential properties available in these areas. A time frame often years (2005-2014) was adopted in order to a Dghg Skm. determine how residential property values have changed over this period under review. Simple descriptive statistical models were used in the analysis ai nd presentation of the data while the Levene's Test for Equality of Variances and the Independent Samples tests were used to test the variability of the investment performance in the two locations. The study shows that residential property values experienced a continuous increase during the period under study. However, the result revealed that the rate of investment in Alagbaka is higher as compared to its counterpart as the result for the different categories of residential properties confirmed that Alagbaka has higher mean rental values as against Ijapo. However, the Levene's Test for Equality of Variances indicates that the variability in the two locations is not significantly different; the significant value for all the properties are greater than .05. (i.e .977) The Independent Samples Test also reveals that there is no statistically significant difference between the two locations. Based on the findings of this study, recommendations were made for improved investment performance. The findings of this paper will be useful for an understanding of the property market in Nigerian cities and other parts of the developing country. The result of which will also be beneficial to investors and policy-makers in their decision-making processes.