Property vendors leverage N30bn ‘moving home’ business

As part of strategies to grow project portfolio and deepen their share of the property market, property vendors are leveraging the N30bn “moving home” business, with interest in providing after-sales services.

The home relocation management business, which centres on the movement of household items such as furniture and interior decorations for clients from their existing to their new homes,  remained an untapped market in Nigeria, with only a few operators in the Lagos and Abuja property markets.

The country’s local relocation or inland services industry, though unregulated, is believed to be worth about N30bn annually, with an estimated five percent of the total 28 million believed to be high net-worth and middle income households who typically move home about once in every four years, and can afford to pay relocation service providers an average of N80,000 per move.

International relocation or destination services which deal with the moving of expatriates or home-owners across borders is estimated to be worth N2.5 billion, with relocation managers moving close to a million cubic meters annually, at an estimated cost of N2,500 per cubic meter.

With only few notable operators offering home-buyers professional relocation, investigations by BusinessDay show a clear intent by property vendors to veer into the lucrative after sales service.

“We decided to veer into relocation management as a way of providing cutting-edge after sales services to our clients, whom we feel deserve a more specialised attention to their valuables when relocating to a new property, Okechukwu Iwuagwu of O-macconi, said to our reporter, maintaining that the very informal market has remained visibly untapped.

Iwuagwu explained that since his firm started offering the service, “home buyers now see us as an all encompassing real estate firm who not only vend properties but also offer the much desired after sales service of moving our client’s belongings to their new homes or even offices, and this strategically gives us an edge when dealing with clients”, he said.

Analysts who commended the expansion strategy see the emerging trend as a major statement in Nigeria’s growing service industry which already contributes over 50 percent to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Amaka Okolo, managing director, Promovers Limited, a professional relocation firm, in response to questions from BusinessDay, noted that though the local relocation is still in its infancy, the business is bound to boom soon. Okolo added that as more people get busier in their daily lives, they begin to see the need to use professional movers as is done in the western world.

“The major value proposition in relocation business lies with ease and efficiency of service delivery and a lot of property vendors haven’t mastered the art of removal services which will always put us (professional relocation managers) at an advantage as relocation is all we do.

“We serve clients who constantly refer us to other clients and we maintain a customer satisfaction ratio of 90 percent, so it will be  difficult to beat this without getting prepared,” she stressed.

ODINAKA MBONU