The Head of Real Estate Finance, at Stanbic IBTC West Africa, Mr. Adeniyi Adeleye, has pointed out that high interest rate is the main challenge facing real estate financing in the sub-region. According to him, interest rates on the domestic currencies among many West African countries has made it impossible for real estate developers to project effectively in the local currencies. He stated that with the local currency, absorbing the funding cost is very difficult to achieve since the sector is capital intensive but the profit margin is small. “The way out is we must all resolve our macro indicators to bring interest rate down…since in our markets working with the local currency will be extremely risky”, he said. He quickly pointed out that Stanbic has designed dual currency funding structure where people in a certain income bracket are allowed to finance their projects both in dollars and in the local currency.