The housing provision in Nigeria faces significant challenges stemming from an inadequate supply of essential housing development, affordability issues, and a rapidly growing urban population. Although public–private partnerships (PPP) have been introduced to mitigate the housing challenges in Nigeria, they are inefficient in meeting the housing provision requirements. The recent surge in private developers plays a crucial role in addressing the housing challenges in Nigeria, yet various factors hinder their engagement. This study aims to identify and analyse the critical success factors (CSFs) that influence the effective engagement of private developers in housing provision in Nigeria to enhance private developers’ participation and promote sustainable housing development. This study adopts a quantitative approach to identify and analyse 28 CSFs influencing private developers’ effective participation in Nigerian housing provision. The data was collected from various stakeholders (168) in Abuja physically and virtually using a five-Likert scale questionnaire. The data were subjected to statistical analysis to rank the CSFs based on perceived importance, determine their significance, and factor them into clusters. The results show that stakeholders perceive “efficient regulatory frameworks that streamline the development process” and “access to affordable financing options” as the most important CSFs. The CSFs are further categorised into four clusters, “regulatory and management efficiency”, “market and stakeholder engagement”, “sustainability and innovation”, and “risk and resource optimisation”. This study established that strengthening regulatory frameworks, fostering collaborative stakeholder relationships, promoting innovative practices, and optimising resource management are critical to improving private developers’ contributions to addressing the housing deficit in Nigeria.