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DIARY OF A LAGOS PROPERTY AGENT


The rate of property development along the Lekki Expressway corridor is so rapid that the traffic on the only access road to this axis is gridlocked every morning and evening during rush hour traffic. The congestion is worsened by the lingering road repairs and weight of traffic. If you are unfortunate enough to leave home for the Island or Mainland after 7am, you may spend hours reaching your destination. On some of the estates on this axis you have nature and human beings co-existing side by side in some sort of imposed harmony. It is not uncommon to find crabs and snakes in people’s gardens, on the roads and even inside the houses. I had to take a client to a property on one of the new developments in Ajah, and while waiting outside the estate gates, I had a look around and could have been in a remote village in Kafanchan or Osun state. There were goats and chickens running around, naked children blissfully happy in their God given skins, untarred dirt roads and bush as far as the eye could see, road side eateries cooking on firewood, and shops set up in every available space. Yet when you drive through the estate gates, you are transported into another world with evenly laid out plots and houses with landscaped gardens. It is sometimes disconcerting to go from one environment to the other in one second. But the beauty of this type of living is that both communities feed off one another. Local shops are set up in the local communities which cater to the needs of estate community. The local community Oba also ensures some type of security and protection for these new estates.

estate agent

It appears the oversupply of new properties in Lekki 1 is causing a glut. There is so much choice that it is quite confusing for clients as they more than likely have five or six other agents running around for free, searching for properties for them. It is so common now for agents to ask if the other agent is the principal agent working directly for the landlord. If you are not, some agents drop you like a stone as they can see their fees reducing drastically.

While driving along the Lekki Express way this week, there was an accident around one of the strangely large roundabouts, which caused a tail back for about two hours. These roundabouts are accident hotspots and cause a lot off accidents due to cars bunching up together to circumnavigate the roundabouts.  Although traffic has eased enormously between the first roundabout at Lekki 1 and the third roundabout at Jakande due to the widening of the road, the traffic from Chevron roundabout to VGC/Ajah is still a nightmare

I had to go and look at a large plot of land for a friend in the UK, who had purchased the land on the basis that it had been recommended by a good friend! The plots of land were purchased with the intention of selling them on at a much higher amount in a year or so when prices should have gone up.  Unfortunately it is proving difficult to get the paperwork. One can still get fairly affordable plots of land nearer the Free Trade Zone and the closer to Epe that you go. Land there can still be purchased for under 1million a plot, but be sure that you get all the paperwork for the land before exchanging any money.

by Caroline Adeola Akinlotan

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