Rare opportunity beckons as Oakwood Residences goes off market
Oakwood Residences are upscale developments that provide contemporary 3-bedroom apartments and 5-bedroom penthouses with excellent build quality and finish.
The Residences which came to the market with strong value propositions in terms of its location, pricing, build quality, flexibility in payment terms, functionality, aesthetics, creative spacing, etc is readying now to exit the market, having only two apartment left for last minutes buyers.
Oakwood belongs to the class of great real estate which, typically, stimulates fond emotions that could be a lot more profound with top notch facilities such as fitted gym, swimming pool, spa, water treatment plant, standby generator as well as 250sqm apartments and 500sqm penthouses.
“This property ticks all the right boxes which rarely happens”, says Fine and Country CEO, Udo Okonjo, whose company is exclusively marketing the property, adding, “top all of these up with the Fine and Country West Africa seal of guaranteed title”
“One would, honestly, be unsure of what else an astute investor would be looking for. This property is great for those looking for the convenience factor, scaling down and moving from congested Lekki axis or mainland or for Diaspora Nigerian buyers wanting security in title and peace of mind. This explains why we have sold out mainly to owner-occupiers and Diaspora investors, with only two apartments available”, Okonjo disclosed.
Oakwood is located in Ikoyi, a real estate submarket in Lagos that is experiencing tough time arising from declining income, falling demand and products over-supply. Though Okonjo agrees that it’s a challenging time for this market which she blames on over-pricing, poor build quality, etc, she maintains there is still market for good location, good quality and good pricing for properties.
“I continue to maintain that there is still market for good location, good quality and good pricing for properties. Old or new, if a property is over-priced because the owner is not interested in what the market is saying in terms of pricing, maybe because he is using it as a means of storing wealth, then for us at Fine and Country, that is not our market.
“This is why we advise before we sell. Our strategy is to offer advisory service from the first stage. We prefer to start to give advice first because that enables us to determine the objective of our client. If the client is one that is not interested in what the market demands and requires, then such a client is not for us. We call clients like that unmotivated sellers and we advise buyers to avoid such sellers. These are also part of the reasons you see a lot of empty buildings in high end segment of the market”, she noted.
She advised that investors should recognize that there is always cost to leaving buildings empty. Such cost comes in terms of maintenance, depreciation, decay, etc. It is always good to have people in a building. Any serious investor recognizes that markets come in cycles and so make all the adjustments they want to make and when they do, they bid their time and wait for the cycle to return.
“For us, what is fundamental is how you acquire a property and why you are acquiring it because that will determine what you are going to do when things go wrong. If you are in for a long term, which is what real estate investment is all about, the fact that there is a downturn should not make anybody feel that the world is about to end”, she advised further.