Experts see data, mortgage, Proptech drive property market in 2025

Estate surveying and valuation experts and other stakeholders in the real estate value chain say that the property market in Nigeria will be driven largely by data, mortgage and property technology in 2025, stressing that these factors are critical for the growth of the market.

The experts spoke at the December edition of Real Estate Roundtable Series hosted by Bamigbola Consulting with the theme, Real Estate Market Evolution in Nigeria: Assessing the Past; Projecting into the Future.’

The online event featured Chudi Ubosi, Principal Partner, Ubosi Eleh + Co, and Dipo Davies, Castles CEO, who joined Dotun Bamigbola, Senior Partner at Bamigbola Consulting, to assess the Nigerian property market past, looking at the present and projecting into the future of the market.

“The critical thing we require is a functional mortgage system which is not just for financing or assisting to finance housing projects, but also to allow a very wide range of people to own property. When you own property, you have invested in the community, meaning that you are interested in the way the community evolves,” Davies said.

“If you buy property today, you don’t need to register it immediately. You don’t need to show your source of funds. You don’t need to show how you acquired the funds. But all these are different when it comes to having a proper mortgage system. The cash and carry system we are operating now is worrisome. We all heard the story of somebody who had 753 duplexes in in Abuja,” he added.

He noted that all these can only happen where mortgage is not involved which is not sustainable. He pointed out that everything seems rosy now, but there could be problems in the future, emphasising that involving mortgage institutions in property market would enhance compliance with regulations and ensure proper planning.

“So, for me, there are obvious issues in Lagos. For instance, we heard that 80 percent of houses don’t have approved plans. So, obviously that means that whether they can fall down on your head, or they are blocking canals or whatever it is, it’s not ideal for the built environment,” he said.

Continuing, he said, “don’t forget that Lagos is estimated to triple in population in the next few decades. You need to get a handle on that, and the government has done amnesty, and I think there’s a new building code, but you see, if it’s still a cash and carry economy, it will be difficult for professionals to be involved and for due diligence and checks to be done.”

Ubosi reasoned that generous data on the property market remained important for growth, explaining that, “real estate market data is one critical area we must all work on currently and for the future of real estate sector. For long, we have had to struggle with data in the real estate market. We realized that there is just none each time we need information.”

“We began to track data for the past 10 years. We have got to track rental value, track capital values, and the whole idea is that we want to be a firm that people can come to and if you want to know what the rent of a house in Ikoyi was 25 years ago, you can go to our website and pick it up. Data is what moves the world around

“So everyone of us in our businesses are selling information, and that’s it, but you need to look at your business and see how it is, and make sure that you are selling that information. We are not just doing rental values or capital values; we also track even building material costs,” he revealed.

Ubosi revealed further that they also track construction costs and they do it in such a way that they can tell what it would have cost to build a house 10 years ago, and also what it costs to build it today.

“We are tracking building materials. We can tell you what the bag of cement was in March, 2020. We can tell you what it is today. So, we also have units within our organization which haver that as their business. They focus on tracking and collecting real estate information, and that information is important for all of us. It’s important for planning, it’s important for anything that you want to do in real estate,” he assured.