naija estate news

EASE OF DOING BUSINESS: LANDS BUREAU HARMONISES FEES The Lagos State Lands Bureau, through the Directorate of Land Services, has harmonized its demand notice/assessment letter to encompass all fees payable for Governor’s Consent in the State. A statement released by the Special Adviser on Urban Development, Mrs. Yetunde Onabule said the harmonization is part of the ongoing efforts to improve the Ease of Doing Business relating to land matters in Lagos. According to the release, the demand notice now outlines the harmonized fees to include Consent fee, Capital Gain Tax, Stamp Duty, Registration Fee, Neighborhood Improvement Charge, Charting Fee as well as Endorsement and Form 1c charges. Onabule stated that the new payment schedule affords applicants the opportunity to pay all fees related to the issuance of Governor’s Consent in a single transaction. She said in addition to the newly introduced payment regime, automated searches at the Land Registry are conducted  withi...

  We’ll Transform Edifice To National Monument, Says Ambode …Thanks Buhari, Osinbajo, Fashola, Others The Federal Government  on Tuesday  completed the final handing over of the Presidential Lodge, Marina to the Lagos State Government about twenty years after the journey to actualize it commenced. Speaking at the brief but impressive handing over ceremony, held at the Conference Room of Federal Ministry of Works, Power and Housing in Abuja, Lagos State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode said the development was a testament of the commitment of President Muhammadu Buhari to bring positive change to Lagos. Governor Ambode particularly commended the President, Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo; Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola and staff of the Ministry; Permanent Secretary in the Office of Chief of Staff to the President, and other stakeholders who worked to ensure the final transfer of the asset to Lagos. The Governor said: “We a...

The Chief Executive Officer of real estate investment firm, Broll Nigeria, Mr. Bolaji Edu, says real estate is a viable industry for economic diversification. At the recently held West African Property Investment Summit 2017 in Lagos, where Broll was the platinum sponsor, Edu said Nigeria had heightened investment potential among the comity of nations as the real estate industry was expected to grow at an average rate of 5.39 per cent between 2017 and 2020. According to him, Nigeria has proven to be a power house in West Africa and has great potential to attract investors. Edu stated, “It is time for the country to diversify to other sectors of the economy and real estate has proven to be a viable sector to attract investors from Africa and other parts of the world. The fund managers and asset managers with property skill sets are able to drive excess returns. “Essentially, we have good quality grade ‘A’ stocks, which are developed by local investors and internat...

The coastal city of Lagos is the largest city in both Nigeria and all of Africa, with a metro area population of 21 million. It is one of only three mega-cities — cities with a population exceeding 10 million — in Africa, and one of the fastest-growing cities in the world. The rapid pace of Lagos’ growth means the city’s infrastructure hasn’t been able to keep up. Because of this, 70 percent of the city’s population lives in slums, which often reside over water. Some even call these slums the “Venice of Lagos.” Despite these woes, Nigerian leaders see the city as a tremendous opportunity rather than an immense burden. The habitat program manager for Nigeria, Professor Johnson Bade Falade, said the situation in recent years has improved noticeably, saying that “a breath of fresh air has come over Lagos … the difference is clear, the evidence is the improved landscape of Lagos in the urban regeneration project.” At the center of this regeneration project is the extremely...

The UN migration agency is stepping up the rate at which it flies migrants home from Libya, aiming to evacuate up to 15,000 in the final month of the year. The acceleration of returns is an attempt to ease severe overcrowding in detention centres, where numbers swelled after boat departures for Italy from the smuggling hub of Sabratha were largely blocked this year. It also followed a CNN report showing migrants being sold for slave labour in Libya, sparking an international outcry and calls for migrants to be given safe passage from the country. The  International Organisation for Migration  (IOM) has already flown back more than 14,500 migrants to their countries of origin so far this year as part of its voluntary returns programme. Nigeria, Guinea, Gambia, Mali and Senegal have seen the highest numbers of returns. Migrant flows through Libya surged from 2014. No fewer than 600,000 crossing the central Mediterranean to Italy over the past three yea...

FG Advised to Introduce Subsidy in Housing, Tax Occupied Property Experts in the housing sector of the nation’s economy at the weekend called on the Federal Government to introduce subsidy in the sector to enable the country achieve the dream of providing  affordable housing  for the citizenry. They argued that such measure if applied, would not only help greatly in abridging the over 17 million housing deficit facing the nation, but will also create huge employment opportunities for the teeming youth population in the country. The experts, who spoke at the Nigeria Housing Finance, NHF, conference in Abuja, also urged the government to introduce a system whereby unoccupied property across Nigerian cities are taxed, especially in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, where such ‘ghost’ buildings abound. They also advised the government to channel revenue that will accrue from taxing of unoccupied buildings to subsidise the housing sector with a view to enabli...

Stanbic  IBTC Holdings PLC and other players in Nigeria’s real estate industry are pushing for a long-term strategy for the sector to attract domestic and foreign institutional investments to establish sustainable foundation for the commercial real estate sector to support the nation’s economic growth, development and diversification efforts. At a two-day West Africa Property Investment Summit in Lagos, recently that attracted a wide spectrum of operators in the industry, experts including property developers, design professionals, investors, bankers, regulators, pension fund administrators, property surveyors and valuers as well as representatives of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), and the National Pension Commission (PENCOM) agreed to develop the sector. With the theme, “Changing the West African narrative,” the session examined the status of the Nigerian and West Africa r...

Facebook Twitter Google+ LinkedIn StumbleUpon Share via Emai Lagos, a metropolitan city in Nigeria, is known to have two divisions: the mainland and the island. Lagos is a hub of commercial activities and has a conducive environment for thriving businesses for both locals and foreigners alike. Major landmarks in the Lagos mainland are Ikeja, Alimosho and Yaba. These neighbourhoods reflect the unique hustle and bustle lifestyle that Lagos depicts.  However, contrary to popular belief about  Lagos mainland been not as desirable has the island: it  is a great place to live because of the following reasons:  TRANSPORTATION Public transport works.You can actually move around easily by public transport with little or no challenges. Transportation varies in form of  tricycle a.k.a Keke nape, BRT (Bus Rapid Transit), Danfo, Bikes a.k.a Okada, taxi e.t.c All these options are available at relatively   affordable  rates and you can travel ...

The House of Representatives Committee on Works, has expressed displeasure over the poor performance by the contractors handling a section of Bauchi-Gombe road. Mr Israel Ajibola, team leader of the committee, currently on inspection of road projects in the North-East region , spoke in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Sunday in Bauchi. Ajibola, who had earlier led members of the committee and journalists to various road project sites, said that it seemed the contractors had abandoned the project as they were nowhere to be found. “Their project, particularly Kirfi Junction portion of the road in Alkaleri Local Government Area of Bauchi, seemed to us that the contractors have abandoned the site. “We are not happy about it and we will not take it lightly; we are going to put up our recommendations to the Federal Ministry of Works. “ They either call the contractor back to site or revoke the contract so that the contract could be awarded to ...

The Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), has revealed why the Federal is hesitant to pay the whistle-blower who exposed the N13 billion found in an Ikoyi, Lagos apartment, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission . Sagay said the Federal Government does not want the whistle-blower to run mad at the sight of the huge sum of money, something he has not seen before. According to him, the government deliberately delayed the payment because he needed to be adequately counselled before such amount would be handed over to him. Sagay said if the commission, which the whistle-blower claims is N860m, was given to him immediately, he probably would have squandered it within a month or two. The presidential adviser told Punch that, “What I gathered from my inquiry is that the man is not sufficiently stable to receive such a huge sum of money. He is like someone who will almost run mental when he gets the money and will us...

In what is likely the most interesting acquisition deal in the history of Nigerian internet startups, online property classifieds platform, ToLet just recently announced its acquisition of Jumia House for an undisclosed amount. Why is the acquisition interesting? It is barely a year ago since ToLet raised just over a million dollars in its Series A funding round. Jumia House on the other hand, is a subsidiary of a billion-dollar company. This raises the question of how ToLet was able to finance such an acquisition. By additional financing from an investor, it turns out. According to the press release Techpoint received, the acquisition is in conjunction with their existing investor — Frontier Digital Ventures (FDV) — and will merge the two platforms over the coming months, under the new name of PropertyPro.ng. Currently with over 60,000 property listings, ToLet will be adding Jumia House’s 22,000 listings, traffic, staff and other assets to its portfolio. Interestingl...