Lack of accurate data on the number of assets being created at any point in time is not only a big problem for the mortgage industry, but also to investment decision in Nigeria’s real estate, Hakeem Oguniran, chairman, Lagos Building Investment Company (LBIC) Plc, has said.
Oguniran who was guest speaker at the second general meeting of Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), Lagos State branch, explained that “if you don’t know how many assets are created and where they are being created, it will be difficult to take business decisions.”
He added that lack of data hinders off-takers profiling, which should show eligibility, age, income group, home preferences for real estate investments, pointing out that data helps to facilitate mortgage origination as operators need insight into customers and borrowers.
“There is a lot of harmful competition in this industry. We should not keep information under our table. Not sharing data among professionals is causing harm to your business,” he said, urging NIESV members to invest more in building sustainable data for maintaining real estate and property market segmentation.
“More seriously, why should we rely on the government for data. The private sector should actually take responsibility for business data. We have to start on our own as professionals. Lagos State is a big property market. There are about nine property markets in Lagos state, each market presenting its unique dynamics,” Ogunniran said.
Speaking at the meeting tagged ‘NIESV Lagos @50: Importance of Real Estate Data to the Mortgage Industry, Adedotun Bamigbola, the branch chairman, assured that the branch had taken up the challenge to build a reliable data on real estate investment and development in Lagos.
According to him, NIESV has embarked on a flagship data project called ‘The Lagos Property Market Consensus Report’ whose maiden edition was released in August 2020 for first half of the year and another one to be released in December 2020 for the second half of the year.
“Hopefully, the challenges we have with data will reduce drastically as we continue this data project. Yes, it is not easy getting those data and 178 firms to contribute. It takes a lot of hard work and funding, but we will not relent,” said Bamigbola, stating that 178 real estate firms which are members of the Lagos Branch of NIESV contributed to the property data project.
The event also witness the unveiling of the branch’s 50th Anniversary logo by Oguniran as it prepared to celebrate its 50th anniversary early December.
The NIESV Lagos State branch 50th anniversary logo was unveiled at the general meeting, while celebration is slated to hold on December 3, with the theme, ‘We Build Cities: NIESV Lagos and Real Estate –1970s to 2020 and the Future’.
