The word shelter is often said by scholars to be the next necessity of man after what to eat and put on that is, Food and Clothing. It is however, a fact that man cannot do with housing. Larger percentage of man’s day to day activities takes place under the roof except in some few cases. After the daily work we go to our shelter, a place of abode, a place of rest and comfort. Aside the above has effect on individual health, productivity and overall well being of man.
Shelter has been in existence since the time immemorial which was dated back to the creation. From garden to Hut till the present day mansions.
Residential properties are the types of properties that provides accommodation i.e. dwelling where larger activities of man is performed as compared to other types of properties like commercial, Recreational, Industrial, Institutional, Educational among others. Therefore, we need to know that the word “housing” is more than the physical structure we see around us because a place of abode where majority of activities of man is expected to take place must be conducive and thereby fortified with some basic facilities and or amenities. But today in some parts of the word especially the developing countries reverse is the case in the sense that properties being developed are lacking such facilities like Bathrooms, Toilets, Drainage, Water supply, and effective waste disposal.
In view of the above, many factors is attributed to this ranging from Government policies, per capital income, high cost of building materials, etc. Though, man know the importance of owing a housing accommodation but these limiting factors highlighted above has made most especially the low and middle income earner go for what they could afford and this is the result of what we are seeing in most of our cities today.
Statistics have shown that despite the effort of the government at the center to make provision of housing available for larger percentage of the population by establishing the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria over two decades ago, slums are still in major cities and towns.
Finally, since shelter is one of the three fundamental needs of man government at all levels especially developing countries should create enabling environment and policies whereby an average citizen can have access to a good accommodation and thereby making our towns and cities more appealing.
References
[source](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/residential property)
source
source
source