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By Chinelo Obogo
One of Nigeria’s leading Real Estate agencies, Ramos Realty, has called on the Federal Government to intervene due to the rising inflation affecting the growth of the sector.
The CEO of Ramos Realty, Adeyinka Ramos, while commenting on the situation of the sector said: “The real estate industry was one of the most hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the industry has played catch-up and was met by inflation and ever-climbing exchange rates.
“The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) told us that in 2021 the economy of Nigeria advanced by 4 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2021, following a 5 per cent expansion in the previous year. According to the NBS, we recorded a 3.85 per cent growth in the second quarter of 2021 and grew by 10 per cent YoY in Q3 2021 as well as a sustained positive quarterly YoY growth trend since Q1 2021. However, despite the figures, the real estate and construction industry remained low due to inflation which resulted in increased cost of construction and over-dependence on imported building materials.”
Ramos said that the prices of building materials even within the country have skyrocketed thereby making it difficult for citizens to venture into building their homes but have settled for tenancy which keeps climbing as well.
Besides inflation, Ramos also noted that the industry is faced with other issues such as haulage costs, increase in cost of diesel, foreign exchange rates, port charges for imported materials and a long list of issues affecting the sector.
Speaking on possible solutions, he said that diversification should be taken a lot more seriously by stakeholders in the Real Estate and Construction industry while the government tackles bigger issues like inflation.
“If you look at any construction or building work today, you will find that almost 70% of the cost goes into the construction materials, especially iron and other materials. However, if we are able to use materials like wood for things like flooring, wall partitions and the likes, we can make the buildings cheaper and lighter,” he added.
