Low income earners looking to own homes in Nigeria now have the fastest means of bringing that dream into reality. Afrikan Heroes Group is partnering with Bishtech Soft Consults, a civil engineering firm based in Nigeria to give Nigerians the rare opportunity of owning homes at one of the choicest locations in Nigeria.
‘‘We are bringing a change to the real estate industry in Nigeria,’’ says Emmanuel Elem, founder and CEO of Afrikan Heroes Group. ‘‘Before now, real estate business in Nigeria has been a thing of the rich.”
Here Is How It Will Work
- With Nigeria’s population surging and more and more housing facilities needed to shelter the teeming population, low income earners are often confined to the option of letting apartments and falling under the heavy burdens of yearly rent and worries of suddenly slipping into homelessness.
- Owning a house in major cities for them is also a tall order. According to a recent estimate by the BBC, it takes approximately ₦5 million ($13,000) to build a three bedroom flat in eastern Nigeria, aside the cost of acquiring the land. At that rate, it will take a worker earning the national minimum wage of $80 per month about 14 years or more to own a three bedroom flat in that part of the country.
‘‘Low income earners in Nigeria and Africa as whole hardly participate because it is a business of money bags; you must have enough money to participate,’’ Elem says.
- To reduce this burden, Elem and his company Afrikan Heroes Group is partnering with a civil engineering firm, Bishtech Soft Consults, to make home-ownership affordable to this category of people.
- By targeting the initial sale and development of 150 plots of land under a pilot project at Bishkez Estate, at the back of Centenary Estate Extension, Enugu, Enugu State, Eastern Nigeria, Elem is certain to help the government solve the 22 million housing deficitin Nigeria.
‘‘The current project is revolutionary because we are targeting people that don’t have enough money; we want to make them land owners and home owners at the same time”.
According to Elem, the project which aims to subsidize land purchase and building development for prospective buyers will work like this:
- Prospective buyers will indicate the category of property they desire to own — with the partnership currently permitting only three bedrooms bungalows, four bedrooms duplexes and three bedrooms four blocks of flats.
- The buyers then enter into legally binding agreements with the company, in which land acquisition and building development templates are worked out by the parties depending on the financial capacity and needs of each buyer.
“Now a plot of land usually goes for around ₦6 million within that estate, but we are not selling it at that price,’’ Elem says. ‘‘For the bungalow, the cost of the land plus the bungalow is actually ₦14 million. For the duplex, the cost is ₦24 million, covering both the land and the cost of constructing the duplex. For the three bed-room four blocks of flats, the cost for both acquiring the land and the construction of the building is ₦48 million.’’
Elem says unlike other real estate companies, his company is doing an entirely different thing.
“We are not asking you to pay any of the prices above,’’ he says. “Instead, for the bungalow, all you need to do is to pay a one-time deposit of ₦2.5 million and you are not going to pay any more money again.’’
Similar subsidies are extended to the duplexes and the three bedroom four blocks of flats.
“For the duplex,” he says, “you pay a ₦5 million one-time deposit. For the four blocks of flats, you make a ₦10 million one-time payment.”
For those wondering the magic behind this, Elem says the deal has already been tried and tested, long before the company decided to go public with the offer. As an insight into how the scheme would work, Elem says the first phase of the project is expected to run for four years, starting from when payment is made until when the actual building belonging to the new owner is delivered.
“This is possible because the project we are running has a duration of 4 years,” Elem says. “We are making it a four year project because, for instance, the bungalow whose initial asking price is ₦14 million has now been reduced to ₦2.5 million. While the first ₦500,000 goes to land allocation, the remaining ₦2 million will be invested into a tried, tested, verified and viable business already assured upon by our experts and for which we would be getting a monthly return on investment of around ₦270,000. Now, ₦270,000 is what you should have been paying us instead on monthly basis.”
Simply put, Elem’s company, through the partnership, is planning to reinvest the funds into a viable business that will generate enough funds to fund the completion of the purchase of land and the construction of the building to the standards agreed by the parties.
“This is very much unlike other real estate companies in which you keep paying from your bank account to keep servicing the agreement. Here we are saying: give us the ₦2.5 million. Don’t pay us anything again. From the time you make your deposit to the first thirteen months, you must have cleared payment for the land. The remaining three years is for construction of the building in question for which we are partnering with the civil engineering company,’’ Elem says.
For the duplex, Elem says the company expects each buyer to pay ₦ 5 million.
“Out of the ₦5 million, ₦500,000 goes to land allocation, while ₦4.5 million is actually put in a business that will be giving us every month on your behalf ₦540, 000 without us disturbing you anymore to come and pay,” he says.
“The same thing applies for the three bedroom four blocks of flats, for which you are going to make a one-time deposit of ₦10 million. We are going to follow the same approach described above in investing and utilizing your funds.’’
“Now, I want to assure you of one thing: you don’t need to panic”
The last thing prospective buyers are do is to panic, says Elem. According to him, his company is a legally registered entity in Nigeria and the parcels of land in question and the accompanying documents are verifiable property with the Enugu state government of Eastern Nigeria.
“Anybody that wants to do business with us doesn’t need to worry about whether we are going to disappoint. We are, first of all, going to enter into a legal agreement with you. Our partner is also a reliable and trusted civil engineering firm. Everything has been planned and we took our time to plan this for almost one year. I have personally been in the business of dealing with public funds for the past many years and I have never failed anyone before,’’ he says.
Elem, therefore, assures that the investing public should relax their minds while the company alongside its partner works hard to deliver on what they know how best to do.
“With this amount of money, we are going to plan and get your project planned and completed within four years. After the first thirteen months, you will come and claim the documents relating to the land that will indicate that you are the real owner of the land. The land will be lifted in your name, no longer in our estate name while we continue building on your behalf,” he says.
Overwhelming?
Elem says the possibility of being overwhelmed is not in the least contemplated by the company. He says the company is even aiming to deliver the projects in less than four years so as to surprise its customers and make them believe more in them in the future.
‘‘Before we made it this far to the public, we have checked,” he says. “We have checked the pros and cons, to be sure that we can actually deliver. We are not in this particular project to make lots of money. We are here to build long-lasting memories for low income earners. We want to make them land and home owners.”
Interested to know more and for further enquiries, call/WhatsApp Afrikan Heroes Group via: +2348039421770
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer.