WHY THE SUDDEN FIXATION ON FLIP AND SELL PROPERTIES IN NIGERIA?

 Why The Sudden Fixation on Flip and Sell Properties In Nigeria? - Osaz' Enobakhare 

If wishes were houses, tenants would lord.

If you live where I live, you are likely to have one or two old or ‘moribund’ buildings on your street and sometimes you wish something could be done about them at least to improve their appearance; you may also worry about the health of the occupants, if occupied and for construction professionals like me, the health of the building itself.

There is barely undeveloped land in the core city centers yet most people’s dream is to live and work there; even the communities in proximity are largely occupied and bare land is scare there too. When working from home doesn’t apply to you, the other cool option would be to work closer home. Before now there was a crave for working far from home, so you don’t get too familiar with your work environment and become bored. You want to drive or ride through different routes or use the public transport systems while you enjoy the scenery as you travel to and from work on workdays -there seem to be a special inspiration or spice that comes from/with it. Today the cost of living is on the rise, not often commensurate with income levels, and people are very weary of spending large chunk of their income on transportation; then the other risk factors and if you live in a city like Lagos, the unpredictable and seemingly unexplainable and frustrating traffic. Smart developers are catching in on these opportunities to flip old houses and sell them to the teeming population who still want to live very close to where the good paying jobs are -the city centers because the interests in those properties are often more direct and thus easily closable than in areas where there are a lot of options.

Another reason developers are keen on the flip and sell model these days is the shorter time of completion of such projects especially at a time when the cost of financing is high. If you are lucky to find one that won’t require you to demolish the entire structure, bravo! You can complete in few months and sell at an incredible price. The cost of renovating or remodeling an existing building is generally far lower than building from scratch. It is also faster and cheaper, from experience to process a renovation permit than a building permit. Having been directly involved in flip and sell projects from scratch, I can tell you for sure that after completion it is almost impossible to tell that those buildings were once old and dilapidated -that’s if you work with the right team. We have flipped a very dilapidated abandoned residential building into a very classy and highly functional hotel in Lagos in barely six months that sold for more than double the cost involved in purchasing and flipping it. Investors can buy defective buildings at relatively cheap ‘distress sale’ price in sweet locations and flip them into spectacles to behold -sold off before they are even completed.

Furthermore, an operation called ‘underpinning’ can help strengthen an existing foundation by adding weight to it or taking it to a more stable depth without having to demolish the building and it doesn’t really cost as much as demolishing the building and putting up a new structure. This way you can take advantage of the newly strengthened foundation to add a floor or two to an existing building as the structural strength permits but you must engage a professional structural engineer especially one with such expertise. Developers understand that an increase in the number of floors or units normally translates to an increase in the property value.

In Lagos for instance, while you sleep, flip-and-sell properties are springing up in Oworonshoki, Surulere, Yaba, Ikoyi, Lagos Island, Ikeja GRA, Ogudu, Omole, Oshodi, Magodo, Berger and environs because of their proximity to the commercial districts of Victoria Island, Lekki and Ikeja as applicable.

Osaz’ Enobakhare also manages real estate investment portfolios for foreign and local investors through or in partnership with his company -Heavens Group. He is open to more partnerships in real estate development across the world and opportunities to co-create large construction and real estate footprints in the metaverse. +2347001113333 / engineerosaz@gmail.com