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Real Estate Expert, DEBO ADEJANA Explains
Mr. Debo Adejana is one Real Estate expert who knows his onions. He is popularly known among real estate players as Mr Sack Your Landlord. He’s a Real Estate teacher who teaches people on how to get into a real estate ladder.
He is the CEO, Realty Point Limited. He is an astute real estate entrepreneur who heads one of the leading Mass Housing Development Company; Realty Point Limited since 2005, after a meritorious award winning sojourn in commercial banking. The companies called the owner of the popular Trade Mark “Sack Your Landlord!” is primarily involved on the supply side of the Industry, with a strong presence in Real Estate Development, Investment, Training/Consultancy and Marketing Syndications. One of the less than Ten Standing Conference of Mediation Advocates, UK trained Mediation Advocate, ‘He is an Alumni of Lagos Business School having attended the Owner Manager’s Programme. He is currently the President of Prime Asset Housing Co-operative Multi-purpose Society Limited (PAHCMS). A celebrated Author, Blogger and Speaker. He is on the board of other profit and not-for-profit organisations with a budding interest in Social Housing provision.
A few weeks ago, City People’s ISAAC ABIMBADE (08155107955) visited his newly opened Ogudu office in Lagos and he spoke on the current challenges in the real estate sector, and how some real estate firms have adjusted. Below are excerpts of the interview.
It’s been a while we spoke to you about real estate matters. As a big player who knows the in and out of the sector, how has the sector fared?
It’s been a roller coaster, in the last one, two years. Yeah, new projects have come into the market, but not at the rate one would have expected because of the economy. A number of projects are also experiencing huge delays also because of the economy.
Purchasing power is getting more and more eroded. So, that is also impacting and there has been some migration across the class.
Some people are moving down into the low income. And a few migrations to the high income. But what we have experienced generally is even very funny, I would say. The high end of the market seems to be getting some patronage, maybe consistent patronage, I may even say, while the low end of the market is suffering. That is really where it bites hardest for people. The middle income is disappearing too, but I think largely, when we talk about development, overall, there has been a low. Let’s put it that way. There has been some slowing down, as it were, holistically, across both.
Based on what is happening, Lagos and Abuja are still the main emerging places.
Protocols are slowed down, largely for political and economic reasons. There are emerging places like Oyo State, like Abeokuta. Though there are some weaknesses, but it’s recording growth, especially in the industrial or manufacturing areas. But with the Renewed Hope housing scheme of the government and the Federal Ministry of Finance fund that is backing the Renewed Hope, I think all of that is giving some boost now to the real estate industry.
One would expect that things would pick up from here, because ordinarily now, things are still slow, but we don’t expect that things will be as bad, or will continue to be as bad, If all the projections of the government pans out well.
How have you coped?
Every developer needs to restrategize. So for us, we have stripped the market naked, and we’ve looked at what can we do and how can we do things better. If you recall some years ago, I said that the role most developers would have to play now is how do I get to the market at an attractive price; a price that sounds good to the ears.
So, the concept is getting more and more popular now for people to say share, and sizes are becoming smaller. There are people producing more of three-bedroom with a BQ terrace than four-bedroom, five-bedroom BQ terraces with flat accommodation. People are diving more into investment properties now, because people that are buying properties are always in the business of properties, a lot of them.
So, what they are buying is for investment. So, there are these developmental packages that are coming to the market now where people buy just because of term of years. Let’s say, 10 years, 5 years, 15 years, 7 years, 20 something years from these developers. So, all of those are how we have coped. And for us, our business is diversified, even within the real estate space.
We have our learning and development departments. We are arguably the number one learning and development initiative in the real estate industry.
We’ve expanded to Abuja, Mainland in Lagos and Island of Lagos. We’ve taken our fast track course across Nigeria. We have also always played on how to democratize real estate.
That has been our driving force for over 20 years, and we just intensified on things like that. That’s how we have coped.
Many of your colleagues who are into development most of them have withdrawn. Some of them are now into land sales. Many of them are building low cost houses for the low-income and the middle-income earners.
Is that part of the diversification for some of your colleagues?
Yeah, sales of land gives you ready cash flow, easier cash flow, no doubt about that. So, if people are finding it difficult to make payment for your housing projects, the building material prices are getting higher and higher.
I mean, if you can play with land transactions, you do land, so yes. What are you expecting that will change in the next few months? Because you talk about the change from government and all of that. What is your biggest expectation in terms of change?
Okay, well, in terms of change, I would say that we don’t expect that inflation will still be as galloping as we expressed previous year. I also expect that foreign exchange won’t be that much.
I am sure that we’ll witness growth. I’m also optimistic that inflation rate will come down.
Above all, I think more people will look into all this hybrid way of getting into the property ownership ladder. Getting 25 percent of my pension, trying to get an HF, trying to make some down payments, trying to negotiate with the developer to pay the summit. All of that will come into place to assist people towards ownership and investors will also have very good playing field.
International investment will become even more popular. I’ve said that in time past. It has started to be popular and it will become more popular.
Because if the dollar to naira exchange remains like this, people would, like I tell people, it will be financial japa, not just physical japa. So, a lot of people would send their money abroad to work for them. So, that’s it.
Going forward, what is the vision of your company going forward?
Okay, Realty Point Limited, we’re looking to solidify on our hold of the learning and development aspect of real estate. We are looking to expand our investment aggregation platform, which is how we democratize real estate investment. And of course, we are looking to deepen our ownership projects as in housing schemes for the middle, low income earners, especially earning investors.
So, that’s it for us as an organization.
In the last one year, what has, what have you done in terms of projects?
Yeah, so we have a housing project called Cedar Homes, we delivered to landlords last year.
We have our low-budget project. We call them layout schemes which we opened two of them last year as well, and which we are using to empower people towards homeownership. We also introduced people to foreign investment opportunities.
What have you done as a body to address the concerns of your colleagues about the coastal road and how it will affect some of them?
What I’m aware of is that there are advocacy movements towards engaging the government, particularly to see that even if their properties are affected they are adequately compensated.
I know that there has been engagement with the Senate in that regard. I may not be able to tell you precisely where that discussion is but I know that we are advocating and engaging the government in that regard.
