What you need to know before Venturing into Real Estate Business in Nigeria

The real estate business in Nigeria is a game of dining with the devil with a long spoon. First, you need to put your money where your mouth belongs, I will explain what I mean by this later.

Then you need to master the local politics of that region you want to invest in, this is a must if you want to penetrate the area deeper

Buying land for personal building is not the same thing as buying large hectares of land for real estate business.

It’s easy to quickly claim a plot of land by building a house or fence and also perfecting the papers, with this, it’ll be practically hard for anyone to grab the land from you. But in the case of buying large hectares for the future, it’s mostly not possible or too capital intensive to fence and also perfect your papers. This is why you need to take your time and also invest your money where you have your mouth.

Some People do send me messages to ask whether I have lands for sale in Ibeju-lekki which is just a neighboring town to Epe, I don’t have any, and I do not intend to have any time soon. I have had people from Abuja asking me to help promote their properties, I usually turn down the offer as I don’t know a jack about property in Abuja.

In Epe here, before I ventured into real estate, I’ve personally bought some plots for myself and a friend, we structure on these lands already.

I have leased about 30acres of land here in Epe, Lagos for plantain farming. And even within Epe, I have individuals approaching me to help market their family lands but I turned down their offer.

Presently, as far as Epe is concerned, I can only market properties in only two towns here despite Epe having more than 20 towns and villages. I have my house, my fish farm, my plantain farm, other businesses, and my first private estate within these two major towns. The land I’m currently financing is a few plots to my house and my other businesses here, my farm is in the next town to where I live.

What am I trying to say, I have been practically studying this area for 4years before I decided on venturing into real estate here, And I didn’t just study, I’m a full-time stakeholder here.

Land Grabbing In Lagos Nigeria

The land grabbing issue is real in Lagos, I don’t want to know how wealthy you’re, if you fall into wrong hands, you’ll collect wotowoto. You need to know the right people involved, mingle with the good and the bad among them

In every family you’re dealing with, there will always the bad eggs among them, the bad eggs are as much as important as the good eggs, they’re all united by blood, and the family ties will always place you as a third party no matter how generous you’re

In a scenario where you buy land from the bad eggs, you’ll need to look for a way to find yourself in the good books of the good eggs, if you don’t, it’s only a matter of time, if the good eggs get good support, that land can be forcefully taken back from you

And vice versa, if you buy from the good eggs, still find your way to be in the good books of the bad eggs, remember they’re all family members. There are cases where even both sides will come together to grab land from people.

Before dealing with any landowner, make sure you know their family pedigree, make your findings if they truly own the land, and know and deal with the major stakeholders among them.

As far as Lagos is concerned, I usually tell people to their face in this Epe that no omo-onile can forcefully take my land here.

I’m not just a Lagosian, I’m a true son of the land, I want to see how a land I properly acquired can be forcefully taken from me by my brothers, I go too unleashed my arsenals on such fellows no matter how influential he/she is.

This is another way of me putting my money where my mouth belongs.

Omo-onile Problems in the Real Estate Business

If you’re into real estate, Omo-onile are just necessary evils to you same way Police are necessary evils to commercial drivers

I helped a client get a plot of land earlier this year, we both visited the site one time and a middle age woman walked up to us, challenged us, and told us to our faces that we were going to re-buy the land.

She said those that sold the land to us didn’t give her a share of the proceeds.

After she left I called the seller, he said the woman is their eldest sister, and that she was not around when they sold the land.

I said if that should be the case, any other payment on the land will go to the woman, he said no problem.

When we were about to start construction work, I called the woman to ask her how much is the foundation fee, I visited her house with a bottle of schnapps, gave her the cash she requested, engage her in a lengthy discussion about the land while my phone is on record, save the recordings on a cloud for future reference purposes.

When we got to the roofing level, she was the one we also paid to.

It’s been 5months now, and the owner of the house has been living in his new house undisturbed.

For peace to reign in real estate matters, you need to give Ceaser what belongs to Ceaser, rather than fighting the situation.

Omo-onile’s are necessary evils, you need to find a way to deal with them decisively.

Important Documents in Nigeria’s Real Estate Business

Before you venture into the real estate business in Nigeria, you need to know the various Titles on your land.

There are three common documents needed to purchase land and properties in Nigeria, these documents are:

Freehold: this comes with family receipt and deed of assignment.

Governor consent: this comes after you have done the surveying and also register the deed of assignment at the land registry office in the state where you have the land.

C of O: this means you have duly registered your land with the state government and offer a certificate of occupancy, even if the government takes this land from you, they’ll compensate you.

Investing in a real business is quite different from just building a house to provide shelter for your family

When building, you might not really care about the price of the land as long as you can afford it, what matters most to you is the location, the calibre of people around, and the basic amenities present. If you’re buying as a businessman, there are certain risks you must take to make good money.

It’s difficult to see a virgin land in the developed part of Lagos, but you can still see it in developing places like Ibeju-Lekki and Epe. Meet the Baale of the community directly, and tell him you need land for residential purposes, unregistered land is still very cheap.

Unregistered lands are lands with the freehold title, they’re mostly genuine as long as it is from the direct owner and free from government acquisition.

Buy as much as possible, do the survey, do the documentation, do the fencing, and the layout, get some influencers to market for you on social media, make your money and move to the next available project.

Doing real estate this way is not a walk in the park, it’ll take time for you to recoup your money but you’ll surely reap massive returns

Recall I wrote about how a man got to land with a car, he got more at a price around 200 to 300k per plot, You can make your findings on google or Facebook search.

Search for Isimi Lagos by Landwey, search for Itunu Residential Estate by Veritazi Homes; search these two estates to see what they’re offering per plot. I’ll not want to mention their price but just search and see for yourself

Now as a realtor in that area I can conveniently tell you that a plot of land (directly from the family) within that axis is still around 500k to N1m depending on the area and the family you’re buying from.

Let’s say you buy 1plot for 700k, fence it for N1m, survey 250k, then don the CofO for around 300 to 500k, that’s around N2.5 million.

You don’t need to wait for too much, just come to social media and advertise it for N7m, they’ll rush it very fast.

Why?

The land is fully secured, it has a fence and CofO, and even the government can’t take it without compensating the owner. If you’re doubting you can’t sell it this way, Google those two estates, I can also help you with many other Estate names around here, Google their offerings, the amount they’re selling will shock you

Stay glued to this page, there are more Real Estate Business secrets l will be leaking.