Nigeria’s security challenges impeding growth in real estate sector – Adebayo-Adedayo

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Rock Realty Limited, Ibukun Adebayo-Adedayo has played a big role in the growth of Nigeria’s real estate sector and is also passionate in building generations of successful women in the industry.

The successful businesswoman, who is also the brains behind Today’s Bukka, in this interview speaks on her mission to set a new pace in the sector.

You are on a mission to give middle-income real estate a facelift and ensure middle-income earners own homes early enough in life. What informed this decision?
My passion for middle-income ownership started when I was an employee. I was earning significantly well, had a good official car, could go on summer holidays with my kids, lived well, ate well and so on, but I could not put together bulk monies to own my own house because all the real estate adverts I saw required that I deposited a significant amount of funds upfront; which I did not have. The payment requirements were out of sync with my income pattern. So as much as I desired to own a home, homeownership became a mirage. I didn’t get my first home until I started working for myself and could put up bulk funds in business transactions. Fast-forward to the commencement of my real estate company, we decided to focus on middle-income real estate and our passion is to consistently help middle-income earners achieve homeownership, using strategies that are in tandem with the income/earnings pattern.

Aside from the fact that the real estate industry has become lucrative, it seems to be more saturated, so how have you been distinctive with your brand?
First, the real estate industry in Nigeria is not saturated. The singular reason is this, if you put the number of houses built against the number of homes that should be built per annum, to cover the over 20 million housing deficit in the country, you will find out that we are not even scratching the surface of recovery numbers. However, there needs to be a redistribution of clientele focus. We need more developers moving into lower-middle-income housing and affordable housing spaces, where the large “housing deficit” numbers lie.

SOURCE: Guardian.ng