The Managing Director, Powell Homes and Shelters Limited, Chibuikem Onyekachi, in this interview with REGIS ANUKWUOJI in Enugu, spoke on the plan of his firm to be a provider of unparalleled value in the real estate industry, how to reduce the increasing cost of building through locally-sourced materials, among other issues. Excerpts:
By way of introduction, could you please tell our readers who you are and what you do for a living?
My name is Architect Chibuikem Onyekachi, managing director, Powell Homes and Shelters and the publicity and organising secretary, Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria, Enugu State Chapter. I have been in real estate for quite a long time now. Powell Homes and Shelters is a real estate company with its head office in Enugu, South East of Nigeria. We are operating in several states across the country and operating on every aspect of the real estate value chain, which includes construction, consultancy, development, facility management & real estate development amongst others.
How long have you been in the business of real estate?
We have been in the business of real estate for well over five years now. That’s half a decade of daily efforts bringing about the current level of results you see.
In the past five years since you took the bull by the horns, what has been your achievement so far?
Well, our journey in the last five years has not been without its own share of challenges, but as whole, life is always synonymous with challenges but what makes a man a man is his ability to solve problems. That is what differentiates humans from animals. It is our duty to solve problems and we have been able to navigate through all the challenges in the last four years to expand our operation to all the South Eastern states and we have our offices across three out of the four operational airports in the South East zone. The only Airport we don’t have office is the one that is not yet functional, that is the Airport in Ebonyi State. We have to commence operations there too. Every airport that is functional in South East we have an office there, we have done a good number of transactions; for instance, in Delta State precisely, we have done two projects in Asaba; also we have one leg in Port Harcourt and we are hopeful to permanent our stay in Port Harcourt soon, but that’s a different terrain altogether. We are taking things gradually; within the next few months, we will be able to count those places as part of our victory point.
As a real estate developer, what do you think should be done as an alternative to the increasing high cost of building materials in the country, to make shelter relatively affordable to the poor?
The society where we find ourselves in today is one where everyone who is building a house wants to build a house with cement; but, cement is expensive, yet cement is not the only material we can use in building. We need to look inwardly to craft a suitable alternative to the use of cement. For instance the amount of refuse waste coming from Nigerian homes can be harnessed and recycled to provide an affordable alternative which would in turn drive down the cost of housing.
We don’t recycle as much as 10 percent of the waste we bring out in this country. Some advanced countries have gone to the level of getting to recycle their waste and turn them into building materials like inter-lucking tiles. When you recycle all these plastic wastes instead of burning them, you will be able to make very strong and durable plastic tiles and it lasts for a very long time & can be used to construct roads and so on. It is not like asphalt that will gradually begin to need maintenance; these are just some of the areas we hope to harness; as a matter of fact, we have it in motion and we are looking at the point where an average person doesn’t have to be dubious or involve himself into crime to be able to afford shelter over their head. If the cost of building materials is fair enough everyone would be able to afford a decent home.
In specific terms, may we know some of the estate projects you started and completed?
In specific terms, we have done number of estates on our own, some other estates in partnership with the government and other critical stakeholders, you know real estate is not done in isolation, one of the recent records we broke was sailing out one of the recently-launched government estate, helping the government sale out in every short period of time which has never been done before and we are talking about conquest Estate in Enugu, on our own, we have done and still doing a number of projects , like Golden Estate , Hossana Estate, David’s Court. As I speak to you now we have over two thousand persons who have been able to become land owners through our company. The model we use is not one that makes acquisition of land too exorbitant for people, we want to make it as accessible as possible for everybody, as you would already know shelter is one of the most important needs of man, if things continue to go bad in this country, a time will come when houses would only be for the wealthy people and supper-rich. Middle income earners and low income earners would not be able to afford a home. It is going to be devastating if we get to that stage as a nation.
We have taken it upon ourselves to ensure we service that area (talking about the low and middle class) of the housing market and solve this problem of affordable housing and that is all we are doing through the Brand Powell Homes and Shelters. It cuts across the entire South East; as a matter of fact, we have some projects in Owerri, Ebonyi, Aba and in Anambra. Within this space of time we have done about eight projects and we have about 12 still running.
May we know your projection and expectations for the next ten years?
Powel Homes is totally sold out to offering unparalleled value to clients at every given opportunity. We want to build the brand to the extent where we are known for offering value when it comes to everything partaining to real estate;. That is our goal. Like I said before, we are into every aspect of real estate, facility management, real estate development, consultancy, construction, etc.
We want to be known as that brand that is synonymous with offering on parallel value at every given opportunity, we want to ensure that if you have given us your money the value we are giving you in exchange of that your money will be such that you cannot get elsewhere with that same amount of money, that is what we are after. In that approach, we believe we will be able to impact not just only our country but our continent. Our goal is to spread across the city where we are, and even across the continent and beyond.
