Real Estate Investment in Nigeria

I hope you read my article in the last edition? If you didn’t, please get yourself a copy and digest it because what I will be sharing today is a follow-up to that article.
We talk to a lot of people on house ownership in my organisation, it remains a wonder to me that a great number of the average to low earners in our society that are still tenants seem to have concluded within themselves that owning their own house is beyond their present existence. You can almost hear them say “I will do better in my next life”. Just imagine? The irony is that people in similar situations who by self realisation or cheer circumstance have built/bought their houses say they could have done it much earlier only if they know then what they know now. What’s that? you may ask. They say the must important thing that starts you on the right path to owning your own house is DETERMINATION. That was a surprise to us at first. It was not something just a few said, it’s what everybody said regardless of what they earn or have saved up somewhere. 

Here is the best part of our discovery; folks who once thought house ownership impossible said the same thing after setting out or achieving their dream. For us, that confirms that ALL a potential landlord requires to have at first is the adequate dose of DETERMINATION. Yes, there is the place of other necessary ingredient in achieving such lofty dream like knowledge acquisition, planning, funds, e.t.c and that is what the true life jobless-to-landlord story I am about to share with you represent.

Digest it, note the lessons and apply them in your own situation. It is possible that you too become a landlord soon and I want to share in your joy when it happens because if you learn from this story, it WILL happen.

You can also contact me for further enquiry or practical assistance towards achieving your dream. Until then, read the story, learn from it and take massive action. To your success!

I am a Nigerian from Sapele in Delta State. I used to be one of the Nigerians that wonder how it would be possible for them to be a landlords in Nigeria because of the state of the economy. Things seemed to be going from bad to worse and the hope of ever owning a house of your own could not be imagined at all.

But it got to a time I decided to think about what to do to help myself to survive here in Lagos. I realized that making excuses that I graduated from the University and did not get a job after six years will not help me. At a time I started calling my elder brother in Holland in Europe to get me documents to check out of the country. From the response I was getting from him, I knew waiting for him to come back and help me would remain a pipe dream.

Initially, it was about survival. I needed to get something doing to survive. The guy I was squatting with, though he is my cousin was getting tired of taking care of me. I could feel the pains he was going through to keep things going in the house then.

As fate would have it one day a tenant in the house I was staying bought a motorcycle, the one they call okada. He is a close friend of my cousin and said he wanted to give it out for commercial purpose, to be working for him.

After we prevailed on him to “wash” the bike for us, that is buy us drinks in celebration of the purchase of a brand new bike, I also followed to the licensing office to register the motorcycle.

Thereafter he went to a friend to draft an agreement for him for the bike to be given out to somebody on a hire purchase basis. Here in Lagos they call it “balance and carry”. In the agreement I discovered that he was requesting  N130,000 (One Hundred and Thirty Thousand Naira) from the purchaser for the Bajaj Boxer 5.

Another schedule in the agreement stipulated a payment of N6,000 (Six Thousand Naira) weekly to the owner of the motorcycle. This will continue for six months, after which the said motorcycle would be duly paid for and all documents of the motorcycle handed over to the hire purchaser.

What baffled me in the whole agreement was that everything pertaining to the motorcycle with regards to safety, security, maintenance, renewal of particulars remained the responsibility of the purchaser within this period of six months.

In August 2004 I reviewed the situation of my life and decided to be using the okada since there was no job forthcoming.

Our people say half bread is better than none. My cousin initially objected to  the idea of me becoming an okada rider after all these years studying chemistry in the University.

We knelt down together and prayed to God to protect me on the ever busy Lagos roads, from reckless drivers and I took my destiny in my own hand. Some people jeered at me that I ended up an okada rider after graduating as a chemistry student from the University. But I was not going to them to beg for anything. It was not stealing. What I was doing is a legitimate business to make ends meet.

My brother, I was committed to my okada vocation. Within five months I paid him all the money and collected the documents of the bike from him.

Having mastered the terrain of okada business, I put in more effort to make something out of it. Within six months again I bought another brand new BAJAJ Boxer 5 and also gave it out on balance and carry basis.

I give God the glory as we speak I have 23 Okada here in Lagos which people use to work for me. What I did was to look for a space and put a caravan on it as my office where they come and balance money to me.

From the proceeds from my okada ventures I bought a land in Mowe in the Lagos, Ogun State axis after asking so many questions and carrying out investigations on the real ownership of the land. I did not want to lose my hard earned money to land speculators.

The whole negotiation kicked off at the Baale’s compound and the omo-oniles in that district of Mowe are controlled by the Baale. I paid N320,000 for the land because it is not too far from the expressway. But now no land is less than N800,000 in that area.

I must confess to you it is  not an easy thing at all to build a house, but with God all things are possible. The Architect I went to do the designed charged me so much money. I had to go to my uncle in Festac Town, Lagos to collect his  Architectural design to build my house.

On site I had a foreman who knows how to build house. We call him engineer. But I am sure he trained some where. I am always on site with my okada to check what they were doing there. The road leading to the house was very bad. So many at times the vehicle bringing building materials to my site, would break down.

The omo-oniles issue in Mowe is not as bad as people tend to paint it. It is just a matter of understanding and cooperation. They will tell you what you have to give to them at every stage of the construction. It is only when you refused to pay and started to quote the law that you have problem with them. They can even enter your site in the night and bring your building down. Yes, they could be that ruthless.

In my case I made sure I settled them through the Baale so that they do not bring their trouble to my site. So far I funded the house through my okada business. At the end of every month I put a percentage of the proceeds into the building project.

It is a house of two flats of 3-Bedroom each. I have completed the building and moved in. I can say I am truly fulfilled.

It is like a joke to me that I am now a landlord. It is amazing. My cousin who was living in a self-contained apartment was still paying rent doing a white colar job. But here I am a landlord. To reciprocate his kind gesture of keeping me in his apartment in Ojodu-Berger area of Lagos, I gave out the second flat to him to be living. So that he can also plan from my house to build his own house.

I did not have savings in the bank before embarking on the building. That is where most people miss it. Arrange your finances properly and with what you have. It is a gradual process I have spent over N6 million on the building.

What is left now is the painting of the outside of the building. The inside is already painted. I used quality materials all through the building.

The next thing would be to perfect all the papers which I have already started with Ogun State government.