• Friday, March 29, 2024
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BusinessDay

Studio, single-bedroom apartments hunting in highbrow areas faces shortfall

single-bedroom apartments

Temitayo Ayetoto

The yearning for studio and single-bedroom apartments within the highbrow areas of Lagos is facing an undersupply caused by real estate developers’ over-concentration on large-size luxury apartments, meaning that there are opportunities for investors in the development of such house-types.

Young and single Nigerians who are beginning to get a good grip of their financial balance and desire to experience decent living enabled by amenities in environments like Ikoyi, Victoria, Lekki and Ajah are increasingly finding it difficult to access concise apartments as developers look the other way.

Some of these studio or mini-flat hunters have grown weary of apartment sharing in the quest for an opportunity to express their personality in the style of living pattern of arrangement, colour theme, paintings and artistic decorations among their penchants.

“So there is very high demand for one-bedroom. More than half of our population are young people who are unmarried. Yet, I haven’t seen developers putting that into consideration,” Chidinma Enyinnaya, Business Development Analyst at Realtor.ng, told BusinessDay.

“Developers are just developing. I don’t think they are doing a lot of research because if you go around and see new structures and new houses, they are like four, five and six bedrooms. You hardly find two, three or four bedrooms. The truth is that with our currency being devalued and the people’s income, it is very hard to afford.”

Enyinnaya said developers’s response to the demand for single-bedroom apartments in those areas is the concept of shared apartments, a setting where a six-bedroom flat, for instance, may be divided and sublet as one-room to each individual.

Although this option appears to suffice and is increasingly available, most people still prefer studio apartments while those who can actually afford the standard of Island living choose the family-tailored house of multiple rooms over shared apartments, BusinessDay found.

Joshua Moore, a business developer at Alpha Suite Limited, a service-apartment company offering short-let apartments ranging from studio to mini-flats and shared apartments said the occupancy rate in studio apartments was the fastest in all categories.

However, the undersupply which has resulted into exorbitant prices might be deterring renters from taking on the apartments.

“The problem is the cost. Housing in Ikoyi has always been a challenge because of the prices. Some single bedrooms don’t usually sell as much in Ikoyi because of the cost. The cost is not on the rent but on services like electricity,” Moore explained.

For Bamigbola Consulting, the reason is not far-fetched. The luxury nature and the land value in those areas make it more expensive.

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Refuting the argument that developers don’t research, Dotun Bamigbola, chief executive officer, Bamigbola Consulting, said developers would always look for what will generate the right income for them. They follow the need in the market since the endpoint is to build and find occupants, he argued.

“The reason why you may not get so many single rooms is that these areas command the rate that those who need studio flats may not be able to pay. For example, a three bedroom flat in Ikoyi may top 8 million or N12 million,” he said.

“If you build a studio flat in Ikoyi and ask someone to come and pay N4 million, that N4 million could get that person a N3 million three-bedroom flat in Lekki. So, what is the motivation for the young man who wants to occupy it just to say I stay in Ikoyi?”

Terrace houses and luxury apartments have taken over the  Island, especially Ikoyi areas which used to be just personal houses.

Where are the few available ones?

They are located in parts of Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Lekki, down to Chevron area, although the more affordable ones are situated in Yaba and Surulere.

In terms of price range, for a short-let apartment in VI, a renter could get a mini-flat for over N30, 000 per day, while there are some places in Lekki where N20,000 is charged for just a studio apartment. A studio apartment is one-roomed with a toilet and bathroom and a kitchenette. A mini-flat is a one-room with a parlour and a kitchen.

But there are other studio apartments that range between N6,000 and N7,500, depending on what the clients want. “People go for them based on preference”, Moore says.

For the shared apartment, it is usually tailored to specifically fit the lifestyle of clients. For instance, people who work from 9am to 5pm are matched together. In this scenario, 24-hours electricity is not provided. A power generator is dedicated to them, which can be used flexibly.

Also, the apartments are designed in such a way that each of the rooms has a cooker and other necessary things to it. They don’t have to wait for one another in the central kitchen. They only share the sitting room.

Temitayo Ayetoto