Mr. Martins
Ory Martins knowns his onions in the real sector investment and has provided benefitting and tested property in parts of the country. He speaks to Apex News Exclusive on some challenges in the business.
By Dave Iyima
Could you please give us a brief background of Boing Luxury Estate?
Boing Estate is a company that has come to change the face of real estate in Nigeria, it started about seven years ago with the company called ‘Timi Properties’ and it metamorphosed into what is known today as ‘Boing Luxury Estate’. It started by having an estate close to airport, we named it Boing Luxury Estate because of its closeness to the airport. Along the line, the name Boing seems to be selling more than the company name Timi Property, so we have to register with the Corporate Affairs Commission. Now, Timi is like a parent company, while Boing a marketing company, the image behind the property business in Nigeria.
Being the Chief Executive Officer, what would you say inspired you to establish Boing Luxury Estate?
There is a housing gap in Nigeria and Nigeria has one of the highest housing gaps in the world. We want to play our role by being social entrepreneurs. That simply means we want solve a solution in the community by making something good for our self. Being an entrepreneur as well as meeting human needs.
Tell about the projects your company is doing?
In the last seven years we have provided housing and investment solution to over 1500 families and individuals, they are excited about it. Three of our estates are sold out, we have about three selling now in Port Harcourt, Lagos and Abuja and it has been a very interesting journey so far. The interesting thing about us is that, we have clients coming around and that is because of the job well done. We have about 10 clients who have given us an open cheque that whenever we want to open a new estate, they are automatically a subscriber. This and so many other things we are doing to really satisfy the need of our clients out there.
Are there any challenges so far?
As a developer challenges in Nigeria are enormous, Dangote was once interviewed and he said that, on the judgement day, if an entrepreneur come from Nigeria and appear before God, he would be given automatic ticket to heaven because he is already facing a whole lot of challenge in Nigeria. That is somebody in the manufacturing and merchandizing sector now. Let us talk about the developer, face to face with the land owners, face to face with those that are not educated, face to face with the militant, face to face with the community youths, the compensations and different sectors of land administrators. It is a very difficult and very challenging thing I must say.
Importantly, what I consider number one is to have a niche in real estate development and funding. Secondly, land administration and of course infrastructure.
Looking at the current land review, what advice do you have about land acquisition?
There are two things, there is ‘a land use act’, and there is ‘a land administrators’, what I mean by land administrator is that in each state by current act, the current governor of each state is a custodian of the land available in that state. In FCT here, the FCT minister, but you see, the way they are administering the land, they are not doing well. For example, a developer need to go to open market or black market to procure land, at a very expensive rate for you to develop and government is talking about affordable home. It would be difficult for a developer to buy land in open market or black market, provide its infrastructure, import building materials and make that house to be affordable. Land administrator of every state need to make a deliberate policy in addition to the land act, to make land available, maybe as partnership, or even free or at a highly discounted rate to serious minded developers, this would reduce the housing deficit.
As a developer, is it a deliberate act that developers don’t go into mass housing?
There are factors that prevent a developer from going into low cost housing. Three things I think; Government are have not done enough to encourage that, I just mentioned land allocation and land administration. If government mark a particular section of a state, where the low cost housing will be developed and developer have been given the land free or at a discounted rate; and a developer will be guided on what to build there and how that place will be sold.
Secondly, when it is business, we need to build for people that can afford it. Government needs to do a social policy that can accommodate a low cost house estate. My experience in recent times around the world showed that in the western world, in the Asian country, government made deliberate policy to favour the poor. Here in Nigeria, policies are made to favour the elites. As a business person, who also want to do things that can at least make a little margin, governments at all levels need to play more roles in affordable housing.
Your thoughts on Mortgage Scheme in Nigeria?
It is working very poor. I just came back from Japan recently I was shock to learn that the moderate interest rate was three percent. Some countries encourage and pay you money when you take loan; Nigeria is one digit, but how many Nigerians can assess it? Probably only one percent of Nigeria can access mortgage and this is very poor. That is why the government need to make concerted effort to make this possible.
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