Lordwin Gate canvasses banking sector consolidation model in real estate

Worried about unwholesome activities through which a good number of home seekers, especially those seeking to rent houses or buy land, have lost hard-earned money, the management of Lordwin Gate Real Estate say there is need for the banking sector consolidation model in the real estate market.

The management explains that because real estate is a high end business where transactions run into millions of naira, sometimes into billions in upscale neighbourhoods, there is need for trust and confidence for the buyers to be able to commit their money into the business.

Lordwin Gate, a young but very dynamic real estate firm with strong footprints in the high end segment of the Lagos and Abuja property markets, is well grounded in property investment, development, leasing, renting and advisory services, showing commitment to efforts at sanitizing the market.

“What we need in real estate is the kind of thing that government did in banking which has instilled confidence in that sector; today no one man wakes up with just a few hundreds of millions of naira and says he wants to set up a bank”, Uche Ajaere, the company’s MD/CEO, told BusinessDay in an interview in Lagos recently.

Ajaere was of the opinion that, by now, there should be a law that stipulates how much an intending operator in this business needed to put down, explaining that “when we talk about property business, we  are not talking about small money business. If you look at properties in Ikoyi, for instance, you are looking at N1 billion, N500 million or at least N200 million business.  Anybody committing such an amount into property must be assured that he is dealing with a big and viable organization and not just an individual operating from a briefcase office”.

He does not however, suggest that every interested operator must have all the money by himself, hence he noted that during the banking sector consolidation, a few banks came together to form one big  bank and those that were not fit enough to merge with others were bought over by bigger ones while some others fizzled out of business completely.

“Real estate is a high end business where people need trust and confidence before they are able to do the business and so, it needs high level of integrity on the part of the operators. This is also needed to plug possible loopholes”, he emphasized. The reluctance by banks and other financial institution to provide loans to real estate companies because of its long gestation period, have pushed developers to devised ways of remaining in business and for Lordwin Gate, joint ventures are key solutions to this problem.

The company sees growth opportunities for the sector in this initiative which Ajaere describes as a win-win-situation.  “Generally, when we talk about joint venture arrangements, we see a win-win situation for both parties, that is, the investor and the land owner; we encourage people who have property but don’t have anything to do with it or money to develop it to come up with it so that we can help them develop the property; we really encourage individuals, communities and government to get involved in joint ventures because of its rewarding and growth potential”, he stressed.

Lordwin, he said, prides itself in the quality of the investment opportunities it presents and the management service it provides, assuring that combining their local knowledge with international business practices, they have the ability to ensure that client’s property acquisition and management is undertaken accurately.

Chuka Uroko