How a Mechanic Acquired Two Plots of Land and Became A Landlord In Lagos
Posted by Debo on April 7th, 2009
Dear readers, I hope you are catching up with the realities of house ownership? I bring you another interesting true life achiever’s story in this post, read, be encouraged and apply for results.
“I am Mr. Keye Emejo, a mechanic; I specialize in the repairs of Mitsubishi brand of vehicles and other Japanese cars. Although I learnt my trade in a workshop where they repair Peugeot brand of vehicles I later went to one Ghanaian who knows how to repair Japanese cars. His workshop was always filled with cars. My mind told me the man was on the right way by repairing Japanese cars.
Somebody also told me that our people (Nigerians) now have interest in Japanese cars because petrol is expensive and the Japanese cars do not consume fuel like other cars.
Immediately, I made up my mind to learn the repairs of Mitsubishi, because most people use the L-3300 for transportation, people buy Mitsubishi Gallant, Lancer and Colt for private use. So when I started my workshop at First Gate Mechanic Village in Agidingbi, area of Lagos, it was not long before I started getting customers.
After I got a workshop, there was no money for me to rent a house. I started living with my elder brother. We lived very closely as brothers until he got married and things fell apart. One day his wife went to pick my First Bank pass book and showed it to my brother that I had money but was only pretending not to have so that I could still be eating his money.
Banking system had not improved like this then, they will write out all the money you have in the bank in the ‘kpali’ (passbook). From the question my brother was asking me and the way he and his wife were behaving I knew that they had gone to search my box of clothes and seen the passbook. Every little thing my brother will be angry with me saying I was a parasite, depending on him, while I was saving my money. This was not true though, because sometimes, I used to buy things and bring to the house.
The long and short of it is that my brother and his wife both fought me one night and I had to pack my things and move to the streets of Lagos. Such is life and I had to take my destiny in my own hands.
On getting to the workshop every day, I will pray to God to help me. They normally locked the whole premises used for workshop by 6pm. When it was time to lock up the workshop, I would go and hide in any vehicle that was still being repaired. I would ensure nobody saw me so that the union would not sanction me or drive me away from the mechanic garage.
I was always falling sick because of mosquito bites, stress and restlessness. All my clothes were dirty, nowhere to wash them.
I did this for over three months before I decided to tell people what I was passing through. One man also a mechanic in the yard had pity on me and took me to his house. He cleared a very small room where he used to keep used motor spare parts in the house and said I should be living in the room. There was no light in the room. Even the floor was not plastered. Each night, I would spread the mat I made from used cement bags on the bare floor feeling like a king. At least, I was no longer sleeping inside the vehicles.
After eight months, I gathered money from my workshop and got a room very close to my workshop on rent, bought bed and other things I needed and started struggling.
I discovered that my landlord then did not go to work. In the morning, they will prepare “Akamu” (pap) for him and after drinking it with milk and “Akara” (Beans cake), he would go round the compound giving instructions and that was all. It was not as if this man was that old that he could not work again. Then a co-tenant that had spent so many years in his house told me that the man lived on the rent he collected from his four houses in Lagos; that he invested in housing when he was much younger while others were still on the street battling to make ends meet. He was just cooling off.
It was at this point I resolved that I will also be a landlord and also invest my money on housing. In Lagos there are a lot of people and people are still coming in everyday. They need a house to stay. The moment one is able to build a house, people will rush into it.
God blessed me in my profession as a mechanic. The brand I repair, that is Mitsubishi products especially and other Japanese became so popular and people buy it a lot and bring them for repairs and services in my workshop. The money was coming. From savings I also bought one second handed bus which I repaired by myself and started using it for transport. I will close in my mechanic workshop by 6pm go back home to take my bath, eat and go out with the bus to go and work between 7.30pm and 10.30pm. I would still make up to N3,000, I was surprised. There is so much money in transportation business. Yet people came to my workshop to complain that they were not getting money from it. I think it was the drivers that were cheating them.
Within seven months again I bought another Mitsubishi L-300 bus old model and gave it to a driver. He wanted to be telling me stories but when I told him how much I got within four hours daily he behaved.
From my one room apartment I bought two plots of land in Sabo Ojodu-Berger area. I was told the plots of land were for sale when I got there with the agent that took me there, we negotiated the price of the plots from N200,000 to N150,000 immediately I paid for one plot and asked the man whether I could deposit another N80,000 for the second plot to balance the rest in two months. He agreed and in two months I got the money and paid. The two plots became my property. I could not believe it, that I could buy land in Lagos, not one plot, two plots for N300,000!
This was in 1998, right now, a plot of land in that area is N7 million and above. I continued with my mechanic work and part time driving. God gave me good health to continue to struggle day and night. That was how I got the money to fence the plots so that they could not take them from me. It was just a receipt of payment that they gave to me. But a cousin later advised me to get a lawyer to write the Deed of Assignment on the land. But the owner said there was no need, that he is not a bad person. We just went to prepare it and he signed.
I am from Ugheli in Delta State, I did not like the way people use hollow blocks to build houses here in Lagos. In my place we use solid blocks, I have never seen a single building collapse in my place, not even a mud house. But when I came to Lagos big buildings will just fall “yakata” as if they have no foundation. I brought block moulders from my place that helped me to mould big solid blocks. I moulded 10,000 blocks at ago. People were saying it is too much, but I knew I wanted to build a storey building of four-flats for commercial use.
When somebody packed out of the house I was living then I added the room to my own room because I was now married. It is not that I could not rent a 2 or 3 bedroom flat like some of my friends did. But I needed the money to build my own house.
The way I was doing it was that I would save money for five months and move to site again. We did the Damp Proof Courses (DPC) with the drawing a draftsman did for me. I told him what I wanted and he drew the design for me. The money one Architect charged me was so much that even if I should do my mechanic work and drive for months I would not be able to pay. All these frustrations make it impossible for people to build a house of their own.
It was one Artisan that built the house. I would buy the building materials and my wife would go and stay at the site with the workers to see that they were working with the materials. I was told that some bad workers used to steal the building materials on site.
Getting money is not easy. Government should reduce the money they charge people to get approval. It was after the building was completed that they came to mark the house, that it was not approved. I spent a lot of money, I could only do it because I was no longer paying rent to anybody and people had hired the other three flats, while I still had a full plot that had not been developed by the side of the house.
Omo-oniles will come and demand money when people are building a house and nobody is talking about it. They collected N30,000 from me two times. Is it an offence to build a house in a community? All these have to stop. They will be shouting you have not settled us. Settle what?
Building a house is a gradual thing. If one is determined it can be done. You direct all your income to it, it is better than going to buy cars, jewelries, drinking beer and pepper soup around town. Even if you do not have money or food you can still hide in your house.”
LESSONS:
- Master your trade/profession so you can make as much money as possible doing it.
- Diversify for multiple income but do it after gathering necessary knowledge
- Cut your expenses so you can have more money for the project
- Execute your site your in batches with pre determined mile stones.