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By Maduka Nweke
Bukola Iluyomade, is the Chief Executive Officer, (CEO) AIMART Property Investment. To help alleviate the housing problems of Nigerians, AIMART, a real estate company dedicated to providing affordable housing was established.
In this interview with PropertyMart, Iluyomade highlighted some issues militating against the fortunes of the real estate sector. She listed insecurity, inflation, coronavirus and the crash of the naira against dollar as having made investors in the built environment lose almost their investment in the business. She also lamented the effect of rising cost of building materials and government’s regulationon the fortunes of the sector.
Excerpts:
How I got into property development and my motivation for affordable housing
Growing up as a child, my pastime was building houses on sand. I am always fascinated with constructions. I remember that back then in my village, the lifestyle was communal living. My grand father’s house is a storey building with 12 rooms. Each room was for a family of eight people on the average. Of course there’s only 2 general toilets and bathrooms for everybody. You will have to wake up early so you can bath quickly and pick a number for the queue. Privacy was non -existent and people used to fight a lot. I also noticed a lot of jealousy and bad blood amongst the tenants. I figured that life could be lived better in peace and harmony when you have your own space.
Since then I started dreaming that one day, I will have an apartment where I can stay peacefully and where no one would monitor what I do day or night. This is talking about about where no one knows what I do in my room at night with my spouse or where I won’t be afraid to leave my wife at home to go work only to hear my wife is having an affair with my co- tenant. It is where my children will not be influenced by the bad boys next door.
Of course, I also started having empathy for people. How can I be of help that people can meet up what is a basic right and the most basic of the hierarchy of needs according to Maslow Theory of Needs, talking about Shelter? I have been opportuned to travel round the world and I can say that I am inspired by the housing development models I have seen all around the world. I am positive these things can be replicated here. We deserve a better deal as a people.
How do you maneuver Nigeria’s inflation to meet targets?
These are trying times for the world economy as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. The price of goods and services have really gone higher due to inflation. We have had to renegotiate our building contracts twice because of this. As a company, what we are doing now is to look inwards and see how we can go around some of the cost such that it will not adversely affect our clients and we too can break even. Its a tough call but we are going around it nicely with innovations. Remember, tough situation don’t last but tough people do.
Your assessment of government’s regulation of building materials prices
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In my own assessment, the government is doing its best in terms of regulation of building materials. But I think the space should be opened up a bit for more players to come in to the sector. Nigeria has a population of over 200 million people with housing deficit estimated at about 15 million units. These creates a huge demand for building construction materials. The demand is humongous definitely. That is why I believe the government, in addition to the indigenisation program to empower local manufacturers, should allow more players to come and invest in the sector. These will create competitiveness and bring the prices down.
The government should also look into the issue of quality and enforcement of standards in the sector to reduce incidence of building collapse in the sector.
How has insecurity affected your business?
Insecurity cuts across every segment of the Nigerian economy. You know that nobody wants to stay in an insecure environment. The insecurity situation in the country is the number 1 disincentive for investment in the country. This has impacted the built sector negatively. The country is facing emigration of the middle class to foreign countries. The capital that should stay within the country is being taken away. Also the foreign direct inflow FDI has reduced because of uncertainties. This has had negative influence on the business front in general.
Do you think that government is doing enough to reduce housing deficit in the country?
The government is doing a lot to reduce the housing deficit in Nigeria. But is it enough? I think they can do more. First the enabling environment must be created for businesses in the real estate sector to pick up. The ease of doing business of project headed by the VP of Nigeria is doing a lot to address this issue but there are still some fundamentals like insecurity, unstable exchange rate, forex scarcity, land use charge that still need to be looked into.
Land Use Act and its effect in delivery of property
I have attended a lot of fora where this has been debated extensively. A lot of people have been talking about this issue for many years now. What the government should realise is that they are tying down billions if not trillions of dollar investment because of the land use charge. A lot of people cannot unlock the capital in their real estate due to this singular factor. Lets think about this, what does the government stand to lose if the land use charge is amended or repealed to allow communities, family and individual easy documentation and ownership. It will be a masive win- win where all parties will be happy and economic growth potential will be unlocked. Nigeria loses $10 billion dollars annually due to the land use charge that is yet to be amended or repealed.
What we lost to Coronavirus pandemic, lockdown
Yes. Just like every other business except the essential services like the medical sector. Nobody could go out. The world was on lockdown. But thank God things are gradually returning to normalcy except for this third wave that is gathering momentum again. May God help us because the economy cannot afford another lock down.
