UPDC plans job creation as means to tackle Nigeria’s housing crisis

UAC Property Development Company (UPDC), a frontline real estate investment and development company in Nigeria, and a member of Custodian Investment Group, says it has plan to bridge the housing deficit in the country by creating well-paying jobs for people to earn income and own homes.

Odunayo Ojo, the company’s CEO, who disclosed this at their second real estate summit with the theme ‘Real Estate Investment in a Challenging Economy’, explained that with job creation, several people would be able to own houses.

According to him, many people do not have enough income to afford homes. “When we create well-paying jobs on our projects, we increase people’s ability to demand homes and when there is effective demand, the supply will come.

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“And that is the way the market works. If you go and build a lot of houses today and there is nobody to buy them, you lose money. So the creation of jobs is one of our strategies of also solving the housing problem,” he said.

At the groundbreaking of its new luxurious upmarket mixed development, ‘Hampshire’, which is located in Monastery Road, Sangotedo, Lekki area of Lagos State, Ojo disclosed that the new estate is seated in a five-hectare land which consists of 64 plots.

He explained that the project consists of low, medium, and high-density residential plots. “The low-density residential plots are sized from 300 square meters and one can build single-family houses. Medium-density plots size from 553 square meters and you can build semi-detached houses. For high-density plots, they are 900 square meters and one can build a lot of apartments on them.

“There are also two commercial plots with the size of about 2435 square meters where an individual can build different complimentary commercial uses like Schools, cafes, gyms, lounges, and everything that people need in this neighborhood,” he said.

Ojo added that there is a 3,000 square meters communal area which will be the focal point of development where children can play, people can have their recreation and among others. The project which runs into billions of naira will start by mid-November 2023 and will be completed by February 2025.

The Hampshire residence is a meticulously designed estate that harmoniously blends luxury and tranquility, offering a unique space to thrive and invest in the future.

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On the aspect of affordability, Ojo said it’s a key issue given the economic challenges we face noting that the firm makes sure their development is efficient.

“We have looked at our designs to streamline some of the areas of waste So in the past, people were building very, very large spaces, that amount to higher cost, but very little use. So we are making our development more compact, we are making them more efficient and that also brings down the cost.

“We are making sure that it’s not just the cost of buying the units that we are focused on even the cost of living in those units. For instance, a lot of our systems are solar-powered so, in the future, you won’t have to worry about things like digital cost and electricity costs,” he said. “We are trying to use these strategies to lower the cost of the acquisition of our properties and in the use and maintenance of our properties.”