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From Okwe Obi, Abuja
A property tech firm, Shelta says it is encouraging monthly rent against the yearly payment because of economic austerity.
The firm’s Team Lead, Austin Igwe, stated this yesterday at the 3rd Dinner and Award ceremony, in Abuja.
He explained that most renters find it difficult to offset their yearly rent, adding that even those who clear their bills, experience difficulties in solving other domestic problems.
Igwe also complained that most tenants are care less about the property they rent, a disturbing trend he said had made most property owners and agents to be circumspect in leasing their buildings.
“There is this tradition that ‘the property is not mine and so I really do not have to care for it.’ Today, we are going to award the best tenant and we decided to do that so that we can begin to let people understand that they can actually live right.
“The best tenant is get his or her rent fully paid next year. So, they are going to be living for free.
“We introduced the monthly rent because of the problems associated with it. Most people pay their rent on the edge. A lot of people take loans to pay this rent.
“Sometimes, it gets to a point that they can no longer manage it. They end up delaying or telling stories to the property owner.
“And when they start telling stories, the property owner is not interested. We decided to do it because I have had an experience.”
He added: “What we do is to see how we can help them find a place. Our goal is to see that every Shelta user is able to find a good place to stay without having to go through the headache of running up and down.
“One of the challenges we have had so far has been to have enough property for our users. Till now we have too many users beyond the property we have.
“So, everytime we are onboarding property they are gone before we put them online. With the facility managers and the Smart Inspection officers project that we started, we taking the project to the suburbs.
“We are onboarding Smart Facility Managers and Smart Inspection Officers within those areas.
“Because what we are doing is to map out those areas to people and that becomes an area they can cover using our platform.
“In Abuja, we are looking at places like Mpape. Before now, we were not looking at that area except for places like Wuse 2, Garki, Maintain and Gwarimpa.
“But now, we are looking at the suburbs. Beyond Mpape, we are onboarding property around Asokoro village.
“You know how Abuja is designed, you can have Maitama and have Maitama village. People love in property they really cannot afford.
“Once you establish capacity to pay that rent, you are good to go. Currently, we have over N2,000 users on the platform.
“We have people who use our service beyond the property that we manage because we have been able to create a system that enable people to access property outside our own property.
“We are able to integrate credit bureau into our system so that we can run credit checks on people to establish capacity and other mechanism to do that and that way we can extend our service.”
