Real Estate is a flourishing business in Nigeria that has proven to be profitable, making lot of people billionaires and millionaires over the years. In this article, I’ll share with you how to make money from real estate in Nigeria.
There is an opportunity for anyone to join real estate in Nigeria regardless of their capital. That is, there is an opportunity for people with no capital, low capital, and huge capital.
But, it important to know that when you buy properties or lease them out, you need to thoroughly confirm that all your paperwork is complete to avoid conflicts.
Read also :How to Start Real Estate Business in Nigeria
How to Make Money from Real Estate in Nigeria
Below are the best ways to make money from real estate in Nigeria:
Property Flipping
- Flipping Lands
This involves buying land and selling it later to make a profit. This method is one of the most certain ways to make money from real estate in Nigeria and it does not involve any effort. All you need is money and knowledge of the business.
If you want to make it big with this method, you need huge capital; however, if you don’t have that huge capital to invest, you can start small. Let me give you an example: If you buy one plot of land and then sell it, you can reinvest that capital and profit into buying more lands and reselling them. Gradually your turnover increases.
Land always appreciates so for you to enjoy a high amount of profit, you need to leave the land for a year or a few years for it to appreciate so you can make a sweet profit. This method of making money in real estate in Nigeria is very convenient as you don’t need to work, just buy your land and resell it.
- Flipping Houses
This method of making money from real estate in Nigeria is similar to flipping lands. It involves buying houses and reselling them. With this method, you can buy a substandard house and renovate it. Ensure that the house you are buying is not damaged beyond renovation, this is very crucial so you won’t be wasting your money trying to renovate a house that’s not worth it. Renovating a house increases its value so you can sell that house to make a larger profit.
The location of the house influences the price, buying a house in a rural area is less expensive than buying a house in a high brow area hence, if you don’t have so much capital, you can start by buying a house in a low-cost area to resell. Keep doing this till you can afford to buy and sell properties in Nigeria at luxurious locations.
Property Leasing
- Land Leasing
This method of making money from real estate business in Nigeria is suitable for people that already have land and are not ready to build on it yet. So instead of the land just wasting away, you can turn it to profit by renting it out. You can rent it out to farmers to cultivate for an agreed period of months or years. You can also rent it out to other businesses such as car wash, mechanics, etc.
- House Leasing
This strategy of how to make money from real estate in Nigeria is ideal for people that already own or built a house and want to profit from it without selling. If you own an old house and you want to profit handsomely from renting it out, and then you need to upgrade the house, I mean… you need to renovate it, change the toilets sink, tile the floor, etc, and also make sure basic amenities such as water, electricity, etc are available. Doing all these will increase the value of the house so you can rent it out to tenants at a much
higher price to make a good profit.
You can as well buy a land or house, build/renovate it and put it up for rent and keep profiting from it for a lifetime. But always ensure you renovate it for maintenance from
time to time.
- Apartment Leasing
This method of how to make money from real estate in Nigeria is ideal for people that don’t have enough capital. With this method, you can make money by renting an apartment then renting that apartment out. Simply put, it involves you renting an apartment and you then rent that apartment out to others that will pay you monthly or yearly.
This method is common, especially in areas where universities are located because students cannot afford to pay a huge amount of money to rent an apartment. People rent apartments and re-rent them out to students who pay monthly or yearly.
Apartment Leasing is a good way to start your real estate business with low capital. All you need to do is look for an apartment(s) in a school area during the beginning of their session when they have just admitted new students. These new students and even other students that are already in the school will be looking for where to stay because hostels cannot accommodate everyone. So they will be looking for a place to live around the school area. You can have 2- 3 students join funds to rent the apartment from you. You can even make the apartment look like a hostel by putting bunk beds and renting it out
to each student as bed space just like school hostels.
- Office/ Shop Leasing
In this case, you can build plazas, complexes, and malls in markets and rent out the spaces as shops and get paid monthly or yearly as the case may be. You can also build complexes in high-class locations to create offices and you get paid on a monthly or yearly basis or as per your agreement.
You can also have a building, furnish it with office chairs, tables, projectors, air conditioner, and basic amenities such as water, electricity, etc where people come to have business meetings, seminars, workshops, etc, and pay per hour or per day.
Property Developer
- Developer
A property developer, often known as a real estate developer, is an individual or company that acquires lands, estates, buildings, etc to build them, and sell them for a very huge profit. Some high-profile individuals and companies that are involved in real estate in Nigeria are majorly developers. They invest huge capital in acquiring land, estate, or buildings (could be old buildings) and build major structures on them and sell them out. They can invest 100 million to make up to 300million
There is also a form of real estate developer business in Nigeria whereby an individual or company collects a land or building from the owner in an agreement that the developer will build it and do whatever he wants with it (majorly rent it out) for a certain number of years (10, 20 or more) before returning it to the owner. During this period of their agreement, the developer collects all the rent and money he makes. off the building and by the time the agreement ends, the land owner will have the building to himself.
Real Estate Agent
- Real Estate Agent
Real estate agents don’t need capital to start. What you will do as an agent is to look for apartments for people based on their specified requirements and when you find this apartment, you will take the apartment seekers to the place and if they like it, they will rent it and pay you a certain commission of about 10% -20%.
The more people you look for houses for, the more you make. Because the price of houses varies by location, you will make more money if you get an apartment for people in high-brow locations. Also, the type of apartment determines how much you will make, the bigger the apartment (single room, 2rooms, 3rooms, etc) the more you will make.
Building and Construction Agent
- Construction Material Supplier
If you don’t have the capital to buy land or houses, selling and supplying construction materials is another option for you on how to make money from real estate in Nigeria.
You can buy building materials and resell them. One secret here is that you don’t need to buy materials; you can print business cards stating all the materials you supply and network with people. When they need materials
and contact you they can send you half payment. You will then take this half payment to the people you buy from, you deliver it with their truck or you rent a truck, after supplying the materials on your customer’s site and they pay your balance, you in turn balance up the people you bought from and keep the profit for yourself.
You need to network well and make people trust you. You can get repetitive business from them if you offer them good materials at an affordable price and they will not hesitate to refer people to you.
Read: Top 10 Investment Companies in Nigeria
- Building manager
Another way to make money from real estate business in Nigeria is to manage buildings by being a caretaker. The job of a building caretaker is to maintain the building by knowing what to fix and fixing them at the right time, he relates with the tenants to know their complains and queries and could also be in charge of making sure that tenant pays their rent when due.
As a building Caretaker, you are not restricted to managing only one building, you can manage many and make a good income while still
doing your own personal business.
- Construction Supervisor
Another way you can make money from real estate business in Nigeria is to be a construction supervisor, as the name implies, you will be supervising the construction of a building. You will be required to manage how materials are used, workers efficiency, ensure that the building is constructed to standard, etc. This takes years to learn, you can learn under someone till you get enough experience to stand on your own.
Property Investor
- Property Investor
Another option is to be a property investor. What you do in this business model is to invest your money with a real estate company and they will combine your money with money they have received from other investors and use it to buy lands or properties then sell them for profit and give you and other investors a certain return on investment. This could be 10% or 20% profit for you, it depends on the agreement.
Conclusion
Real estate is a very profitable business if you know the ins and outs. Once you master one business model of how to make money from real estate in Nigeria, you can accommodate another model till you fully expand your real estate businesses. Once you have had a good experience in the business, you can have a real estate agency company and register with corporate affairs commission (CAC) of Nigeria.
Let’s know in the comments if you have ever tried a real estate business in Nigeria and if you haven’t, let us know which of the methods in this article you are looking at going
into.