‘We’re bridging the housing gap in Nigeria’s real estate industry – Sadiq

How are you coping within the Nigerian businesses environment where recent falling oil prices have impacted so negatively on so many sectors

Yes, exactly! This fall in oil price has affected the naira value and that affects all businessmen, not only the real estate business owners alone, but especially the real estate business where most of our finished products here in Nigeria are imported materials. Recently, we made purchases, we had to import some items of finished materials and this low value of the naira against the dollar really affected us a lot, but we are trying as much as possible not to allow that to inflate the prices of our products, which is our houses, because we believe that the government is doing what it can to contain the situation.

Do you have a percentage threshold of how much this increase in the price of your imported raw materials stood at

The increase is like between 7 to 10 percent in our total cost of building homes, but we are trying to manage that in order not to transfer that cost to the final consumer because, as I told you, we are trying to build a company that will reflect the passion to do the work but not only to make profit. So if there are ways we could go about to make sure that we don’t allow this rise in price to affect the end users, we will follow on since our strategy is to provide affordable houses for our customers. You know, there are situations in the market affecting prices which are beyond one’s control, and when they come, we just have to make their impact minimal so that the price increases for our homes never go beyond 3 percent or 4 percent, and so that our customers will not groan under the challenging economic situation facing the Nigerian nation at present.

So, how exactly are you trying to make sure you contain that, you don’t pass the bulk of that problem to the final consumer but, at the same time, operate at a profit

We do that by importing some of our products through our manufacturers; we make
sure that we go directly and import from the source because we have to cut down the chain of suppliers, because if we are buying from a supplier that has already bought from another retailer, maybe there are originally four stages in the supply chain, then we cut it down to like two and buy directly from the producer, which is what we did recently.

What motivates your clients to have the confidence in your products and to keep patronising Design Logic

I think, because of the flexibility in the mode of payment for our houses, they become very affordable and people have been able to access these houses using the NHF (National Housing Fund), and we make sure that we deliver these houses in record time. We sit down with the client and ask the question, how convenient is it for you to make that payment for these houses? And once we are sure that you are serious, we sit down and relate with our clients to see how we can make it much easier for them.

That is why most of our houses are bought over before we finish constructing them, because once we start, people come because they know and trust the quality they get. And this has really been a boost to us at Design Logic and we intend to give out more and even beyond what they expect.

Do you think that the regulators of this industry are doing enough about building collapse in the real estate sector

I feel that the regulators are doing a lot actually, but that problem has not been curtailed completely, because so far, there are a lot of achievements as compared a few years back when there was a lot of building collapse. However, recently, you know that the number or percentage of building collapse in the country has fallen down and that is because the regulatory bodies are doing a lot.

The major problem that is causing this, I believe, is because there are a lot of quacks in the industry, because someone feels that he is a labourer on the construction site and, maybe, has had 10 years of experience doing this work as a mason, he can just decide to go and meet a client who doesn’t know much and convince him to take up a project without knowing that there are a lot of serious technical issues involved in making homes safe during construction.

In construction, once you have land, the first thing you do is your inventory, which involves site analysis, environmental impact assessment, soil test and some other pre-development undertakings, because these are the things you need to do before you can even go to the drawing table and start drawing.

It is the soil test that you will give to the structural engineer, so that you know exactly what you are working with, but, you know, if a lay- man is doing the construction, he won’t put all of this into consideration. You can do this in some sites and escape, but there are some sites that are sensitive and if you do that, there will be dire consequences. If you observe, these building collapse usually happen in places where the soils are not stable enough to bear the load, and which require special tests.

These soil tests are done because it is a careful process with which to determine the load bearing capacity of the soil, which is what the engineer will use to design the foundation type and adhere strictly to the building plan from the beginning of construction work to the end. For instance, if the foundation has been approved for two suspended floors, it shouldn’t go beyond that, and I believe that the regulatory bodies are keeping check on that.

Sometimes, you know, due to one reason or the other, these things keep on happening, but I believe there is a lot of achievement because I used to hear about a lot of these building collapses right from when I was still in school and I can attest to the fact that, yes, there is a serious effort to contain it and make sure that it is the professionals that are actually doing the job, and that is the way forward.

This is because once a professional is doing the job, he knows that his career is on the line and he has the passion to do what is right, and he knows it is not only about profit.

Real estate should not be something that anybody can just wake up and go into, both for safety and sustainability reasons, so there is need for parameters to be in place, like certain policies, to make sure that only professionals are allowed in the conduct of the business, and everybody should handle what he went to school to spend quality academic and professional time to learn.

Apart from Abuja, where else do you have housing development projects

We have projects in Kaduna, we have in Niger State as well, and we are also working on a project in Kano, because we are liaising with partners there, and we are also intending to expand into the Lagos market. This is because we don’t want to rush into places just because we want to expand; we want to make sure that, if we are going there, we are ready for it, because it is not easy to keep up with the quality when the scope of projects at hand gets too wide, and that is why we are being careful.

Who are your major clients, the government, private individuals or both

Yea, both I can say; both the private sector and private individuals – business entrepreneurs and government organisations.

In a world that is so heavily impacted by climate change, how are you trying to adjust your buildings to conform to people’s energy needs in a period of global energy crisis, and how are you trying to make your homes to be climate sensitive

These are the things that we are even going into because if you look around, you will see that people are just building just to sell, but I sat with my team early this year to discuss how to move forward; what is our next line of action for our company? So, what we are planning to design and develop going forward is what we call “smart houses,” but most importantly, sustainable buildings.

And going into that, we are looking into a system called conqueror blue format, it is a plant which you can use to convert local waste around, solid waste, even sewage to generate renewable energy, which comes with zero emissions of carbon dioxide and any other greenhouse gases; very clean energy. I worked on a project on renewable energy and I have some of my mates that also worked on that long time ago.

So that is what we are discussing and I know where to get the expertise to come and implement this. Another option we are looing at is solar energy, because mostly it is solar that people know and it is also common, so we are going into that because solar is really very important.

That is one of the things we are also going into in order to help and contribute to environmental management and climate change mitigation.