On the 16th and 17th of November 2022, The Real estate industry in Nigeria witnessed an insightful event that gathered high profile realtors, real estate practitioners, decision makers at both national and international level at the Lagos Oriental Hotel Lekki Lagos for the 8th Annual West African Property Investment Summit themed; New Frontiers in the New Normal to highlight issues in the real estate sector and provide possible solutions.
For the purpose of networking, harnessing opportunities within the real estate sector and beyond the event was filled with moments that included; Cocktails, Gala Dinner, Expo and the WAPI Proptech Forum.
Speaking on harnessing opportunities and the state of the real estate sector in Nigeria at national and international level, Micheal Obiaju, A Senior officer at Pennek Ltd said, ‘’Well, Real estate is big, it provides a wide range of opportunities as it stands. It is also the current Goldmine of Nigeria after oil’’.
‘’In the aspect of opportunities, the challenges Nigeria is having is that the opportunities in real estate are centered around certain geographical areas like Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt. We are hopeful that the government comes up with certain policies to decentralize this development to other parts of the country so that there’s less pressure on the urban region of Nigeria and the Urban Migration would not experience the pressure its currently having for instance it takes about 60% of the average Nigerians income to pay for rent which is not suppose ought not to be because development is centered around certain places leading to pressure in these places’’.
‘’With the government coming up with policies that would engineer funding for housing you would see opportunities increasing for housing for instance, we have the mortgage avenue, People can take advantage of the mortgage schemes to own properties for themselves, these are springing opportunities in real estate for Nigeria’’, he went further to add.
A Focus on Institutional investments in West Africa which highlighted new frontiers of opportunities for funders and developers centering on listing of New REITS, specialized vehicles, Green Financing, development trends in real estate sector in West Africa coupled with Challenges in Proptech, it’s future expectations as well as development in the hospitality sector had founders, experts and real estate developers, investors giving insights, solutions and personal perspectives in Key Panel Discussions.
When Edward Garneir, Senior Director Development Africa, Radisson Blu Hotels was asked what his expectations are from the event and how he thinks it can influence the hospitality sector, He said ‘’My expectation from this event is to meet decision makers, investors, promoters, specialist of the hospitality business in order to discuss potential projects and make things happen’’.
On the issue of challenges faced in the proptech industry and the acceptance of technology by the real estate Market Modupe Agbolahan, COO Buy Let Live said ‘’We just concluded our event, the buy let live stakeholder forum where we were able to invite top traditional real estate practitioners most of whom embraced technology through our event so i would say the adoption of technology has been good, people now understand that technology is the way, Technology makes their life easier, they can post their properties online unlike the traditional means of renting or buying a property and beating the stress that comes with the property search’’.
‘’With technology it’s easier, with the little data you have, you can look out for a property, Technology helps and eases the process for every real estate transaction’’. She added.
Channeled towards sub sectors that includes real estate developers, hospitality and Proptech, the event had over 400+ people in attendance.