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Most tenants and those seeking new accommodation are finding it difficult to cope as rental values on residential apartments have skyrocketed in most Nigerian cities in the last one year. DAYO AYEYEMI reports:

This is not the best time to be a tenant or accommodation seeker in Nigeria’s cities, most especially in Lagos and Abuja.

This is due to the astronomical increase in rental values in the last one year.

Apart from the low-disposable income of an average Nigerian, which has already been eroded by the general rise in the  prices of commodities, high energy and transport costs and huge unemployment rates, unjustly increase in house rents by landlords via their caretakers is another hurdle to cross by sitting tenants and new accommodation seekers.

Narrating his experience, one of the affected tenants, Mr Willy Ayodele, 45, a civil servant, described most of the landlords in Lagos as ‘callous’ saying they were insensitive to the plight of tenants.

“They just believe you have to pay any money they call or you vacate their property so that they can make more money through the collections of commission, caution and agreement fees from new tenants,” he said.

He narrated how his landlord woke up one morning and served all tenants in the six units of two-bedroom apartments in Ipaja, Lagos a notice to inform them that the house rents have been increased to  N450,000 from N300,000  within one year.

That is 33 per cent increase in one year (May 2021 and June 2022).

When they tried to register their disbelief, he said the landlord told them (sitting tenants) that they have the option to quit or comply with the new directive.

Despite the fact that the house was built about 15 years ago, he said the landlord cited high cost of food items and rising high cost of building materials such as iron rods, cement, tiles and granites as one of his reasons for the rent’s increase.

Ayodele, who claimed his monthly take-home was not up to N120,000, wondered how he would cope with the new rent, bearing in mind other costs such as children’ s school fee, electricity, feeding and transportation competing for the meagre monthly income.

Weighing his option, he said would prefer to pay the new rent rather than look for new accommodation, which he said would come with additional cost.

Another tenant on College Road Ogba, Lagos, Amos Odusanya, narrated how his landlord jacked up rent of his three-bedroom apartment to N1million from N720,000 per annum, being an old building.

For new building in the neighbourhood, he said the rental values are as high as N1.2million to 1.5million, depending on nearness to the expressway.

A sitting tenant in Kubwa 7, Abuja, KayodeAboye, said that rental values for a room-self-contained building in the locality cost between N350,000 to N400.000, depending on finishings.

He added that the high rent was not limited to Kubwa, but other locations, pointing out that it’s ever higher in the high-brow neighborhoods in the Federal Capital Territory.

Apart from high rental values, he stated that some of the small houses to let are hard to come-by in Abuja despite huge vacant luxury houses adorning major high-brow locations in the FCT.

To compound the accommodation’s situation, no fewer than 70 prospective tenants at Lawanson, in the Surulere area of Lagos State, were defrauded to the tune of N60million by a developer, recently.

Report had it that the prospective tenants visited the building, which was under construction, to inspect its premises and afterwards made payments to the developers.

After confirming the payments, it was learnt that the suspects issued receipts to the victims and set aside separate dates for them to take ownership of the apartments.

Things later took another turn when the people got to the house on 16, Zamba Street, Lawason, on the specified dates given by the developers but discovered that the number of prospective tenants outnumbered the apartments in the one-storey building comprising 14 flats.

It was gathered that no fewer than 120 accommodation seekers paid less than N500,000 to the account of the developer,who is still at large.

Speaking to the Nigerian Tribune in Lagos, an estate agent/caretaker, who manages many houses for landlords, Sulaimon Agbabiaka, said that most landlords did not joke with rents nowaday.

Besides, he added that most sitting tenants too wouldn’t joke with the payment of their rents because they knew the implications as landlords have zero tolerance to default.

“If you owe rent you need to pay before the expiration to avoid being ejected by the landlord,” he said.

Agbabiaka, who is the Managing Director, Hafisman Property Co, said that the increasing rental values in Lagos depend on locations.

According to him, rental values for two and three bedrooms Surulere and Yaba are higher than Ogba, while rents in the latter are higher than Ipaja.

“If you live in Ogba,you have access to the expressway and the cost of transport is lower than living in Ipaja.

“Also, higher rental values in Ogba and Surulere depend on the serene environment, quality of finishing, facilities and security.”

Despite the high rental values, Agbabiaka said that people that needed accommodation would collect, attributing high rents to exorbitant materials’ cost.

According to him, to build a room apartment, one would need two million.

“Tenants now pay as when due and clean the environment to retain tenancy,” he said.

Another estate agent, MrToluwaJegede, attributed rising rental values in most Nigeria’s cities to high building materials and land’s cost.

“Cost of building materials has skyrocketed, per square metre (sqm) of land has gone up, whereas investors are in the business to make profits.Many people are running to Ogun State,” he said.

The estate agents are calling on governments to look into the issue.

Apart from skyrocketing rental values, real estate developers said they have embarked on upward review of prices of housing units in their stock.

Most of the developers said they have jacked up prices of housing units by 40 to 50 per cent in the last one year, citing exorbitant building materials’ prices, high cost of funds and labour; and high cost of   securing planning permit and documentations.

Speaking recently with the Nigerian Tribune, the Managing Director of Tobykemsworth Investment Limited, MrAdekunleMonehin, the developer of Honeywells Gardens, said that rising building materials’ cost has forced most developers to review their house prices upward in order to stay afloat.

These materials include iron rods, woods, paints, nails, cement, sandcrete blocks, sharp sand, granite, roof and window materials and workmanship among others

In Teachers’ and Broadcasters’ Villas, housing estates pioneered by the company, he disclosed that a mini bungalow, which was selling for N4.5 million two years ago now cost N6.5 million. This represents 30. 78 per cent increase.

He blamed the situation on rising building materials’ cost, saying, “We have a mini bungalow selling for N6.5 million which was initially N4.5 million. While the price went up because of the building materials’ cost.

“When we did the cost few years back, granite was about N140,000 for 30 tons. That same granite now is N320,000 for 30 tons. When we did the calculation, cement was N2,500, but that same cement is N4,500 now.

“A ton of iron rod at that point was N90,000 per ton.  It is N385,000  per ton now. The long span roofing sheet – 4.5 inch, which the cost N850.00 per metre is now N2,850  per metre. That is the reason we reviewed,” the real estate developer said.

Monehin is not alone in this as other developers and housing professionals have raised the alarm over the negative implications of astronomical increase in building materials’ prices on accommodation seekers and home builders.

Most of the experts and cement distributors have put the blame on the doorstep of manufacturers, while the latter have attributed volatile forex, uncontrolled inflation, logistics problems and dubious activities of middlemen and retailers as major causes.

Disturbed by the situation, professionals have warned that, with the current rise in building materials’ prices, it might be difficult for Nigeria to bridge the housing deficit of over 17 million units in the next 20 years.

To address the situation, the experts in the sector comprising former Presidents of the Nigerian Institute of Building (NIOB).MrKunleAwobodu and Chucks Omeife respectively, President of Association of Housing Corporations of Nigeria (AHCN), Dr Victor Onukwugha and former Chairman of NIOB, Lagos chapter, MrAsimiyu Bashir, have called on the government to create the enabling environment to encourage more research and local production of building materials in the country.

Omeife pointed out that the high cost of housing has also been negatively impacted by astronomical increases in the price of items like reinforcement and cement.

“Every day the news of escalating prices of goods and materials has become a song which the majority of the people have become used to,” he said.

Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune recently, a builder and official of Qualitec Roofing Products, MrAsimiyu Bashir, pointed out that the price of aluminum roofing sheets has also increased.

Expressing displeasure over sharp increase in building materials prices, Bashir lamented that nothing was being controlled in Nigeria by the government, but to leave the masses on their own.

“It is no longer strange in Nigeria that whatever goes up never comes down,” he said. He explained that anything that affects the construction sector negatively, being the biggest generation of employment in Nigeria, would affect jobs.

Unlike it’s been rumored that more construction works are ongoing, Bashir said that many people have abandoned their sites due to high building materials’ cost.

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