Real estate and the digital era in Nigeria

By Olufemi Adedamola Oyedele

Olufemi Adedamola Oyedele, MPhil. Construction Management, managing director/CEO, Fame Oyster & Co. Nigeria, is an expert in real estate investment, a registered estate surveyor and valuer, and an experienced construction project manager. He can be reached on +2348137564200 or femoyede@gmail.com.

There is no doubt that the ravaging COVID-19 has significantly changed the way people live, work and play, in a way that could never have been imagined. The bottom-line is health and safety. Any real estate practitioner – that is, real estate developer, real estate facilities manager or real estate broker – that is not digital-compliant in this era of digital revolution, will find himself to blame. Technology adoption in real estate business has shown that COVID-19 is not a deterrent to doing real estate business and that where there is a will, there is a way. In actual fact, the real estate market outlook for 2021 predicted it will grow by 1.5 percent, but it actually achieved 2.3 percent growth compared, year over year, with 2020!

Real estate buyers are now conscious of the way they interact with each other, including the way they do business in cognizance of their safety-issues occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. Real estate can be defined as landed property – land, buildings, air rights above the land and underground rights below the land. The term real estate means real or physical property. Some land economists claim that ‘real’ came from the Latin word ‘res’, meaning ‘actual’, ‘things’ or ‘genuine’. Others claim it was from the Latin word ‘rex’, meaning ‘royal’ since Kings owned all lands in the past in England where real estate as a business originated.

Estate is the English translation of the French word, “estat”, meaning status. Estate may have been derived from “estat” since property ownership bestows ‘statuses on its owners. Real estate sector is the sector of the economy that caters for the physical infrastructure development and management of building, bridges, dams, roads, railways, and waste management. These basic infrastructure, on which life depends, are inevitable for our existence. Pandemic or no pandemic, people will buy real estate products in a way that supports their health and safety need. Well-to-do people do not take chances with their well-being and safety issues.

The fact that a man is a property owner improves his self-esteem in Nigeria. Real estate is a good hedge against inflation as it appreciates over years like precious stones, it is a store of value, a basic need and contingent to living in that it produces and or provides all the needs of human beings. Real estate process involves the transactions that take place between when a property is advertised for sale or lease, to when it is offered for sale and the time it exchanges hands. These transactions include but are not limited to; offer, inspection, title search, negotiation, counter offer, deed of sale/deed of lease, transfer of property by payment for the property and signing of deed. It used to involve physical meetings of parties to the transactions, at times, involving long distance travelling.

All these transactions can be done with digital aid, and save time and money. Advertisement of properties can be done through a website, and offers for sale or lease can be done with email, WhatsApp or short message sending (SMS). Virtual inspection and remote, new alternatives to on-site inspection of properties can be done through videoing, WhatsApp and virtual inspection software like VuSpex, 3600, Camino and CloudVisit. Virtual inspection of properties cannot take place without the use of a virtual meeting website and they also require software for communication and documentation. Many real estate brokers are using meeting websites like Zoom, Skype, Webex Meetings, Cisco Jabber, DialPad Meetings, GoToMeeting, Microsoft Team, Blue Jeans Meeting, Join me and GoogleMeet (Google Workplace).

According to the New York Times of February 17, 2021, 63 percent of property buyers in America made offers on houses they had not seen in person in November and December 2020. There was also 41 percent increase in traffic on Zillow searching sale listings, year over year, as of fall 2020. Properties listed on websites sell 20 percent faster than on conventional bulletins. Property portfolios on the internet are easier to document and view than property portfolios in physical media. Through search engine optimization, online property brokers are able to identify prospective property buyers who searched for properties using search engines like Google, Yahoo, Yandex, Baidu and MSN Search and are able to reach them, in real time.

Digital tools usage in real estate businesses, that is – programmes, websites, social media and online resources including software that can make real estate tasks easier, are still poor in Nigeria. Property technologies (Proptechs), especially property Apps are still not widely adopted by property investors but there are signs that things are getting better. Paula Gilbert, Editor, Connecting Africa, reported that about 50 percent of Nigeria’s population is using the internet and around 90 percent of the total population has mobile phones. The number of internet users who use the internet to search for property is still poor.

The percentage of property marketing companies using digital tools in Nigeria is very low. Awareness, especially through training is required.

Five essential real estate tools that cannot be avoided are E-mail marketing; Content marketing; Website; Social media like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp; and Search engine marketing. Modern real estate brokers must engage all or some of these digital tools to have market advantage. Property management digital tools include Buildium and Turbo Tenant. Good property management software must be robust and scalable. It must be adaptable and able to support one’s business as it grows. And it must be intuitive and flexible enough to help adapt to a changing environment. At present, most of the property management software are cloud-based, meaning that the data can be accessed on any device and in an internet environment.

Tenant screening software like MyRental, RentPrep, SmartMove and LeaseRunner will give you a report of tenants’ background, including credit history, criminal record, and eviction report, in record time. Marble software is a personal remote property manager that can handle property maintenance all round the day. Technology has come to stay in the real estate world, it is revolutionising businesses and shaping industries and it is affecting the way people are doing business. Any real estate practitioner that does not step up and arm himself or herself with Proptech will have himself or herself to blame.

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