Investing in Real Estate Business in Nigeria: How working from home is going to affect Real Estate demands in the Post-Covid era.

 

If you are reading this post then you are probably interested in investing in the real estate business in Nigeria or perhaps you are already in the business of real estate, you could even just have stumbled across this write up by chance or the title drew you to the prospects of investing in real estate business in Nigeria. Whichever of the reasons, at the end of reading this write up, you will be glad you did. Feel free to read from top down or start from anywhere you are most interested in but be rest assured it will be worth your 5 minutes. Let’s get to it.

 

Earlier this year when the deadly Corona virus outbreak was announced, great panic struck people across the world. And Nigeria wasn’t left out, the government decided it was wise to tell people to stay away from their workplace and social gathering for a while, in fact to remain indoor for a couple of days. What we thought was going to last for a few weeks ended up going on for as much as 5 months at a stretch.

 

Then the lockdown was finally relaxed to a stage where we can all goto work and maintain social distancing. Now what was the economic impact of this lockdown? Did people really give up their business completely to become better parents and partners (arguably some did)? At the end of this blog post we’ll know the answer to this.

 

All hail Zoom, the holygrail for boardroom meetings during the lockdown. Within a very short period of time, most companies realized they couldn’t afford to let go of their works completely, arrangements for a virtual workstation was in order. We witnessed so many zoom meetings in that period of time that it wasn’t uncommon to call your friend at 9pm in the night and he or she will tell you –meeting in progress, do not disturb.

 

Following zoom meetings, we must take into account that the world is tending towards cloud computing, so many companies now make services available over the internet under many schemes like data as a service, service as a service etc. What this means is that, following zoom meetings instructions, you can log on to your computer and deliver daily tasks by making use of some infrastructures in the cloud. So what now? Meetings could be conducted virtually, works could be done from the confinements (sorry for the lack of a better word) of your home, supervision could also be carried out and boom, necessity they say is the mother of invention.

 

Now let’s stop there and consider for a moment how this will impact real estate business in the coming days.

 

Imagine as a manager you were able to maintain ~90% productivity level during the work-from-home period while cutting costs of running electricity, internet data, workspace maintenance and even in some cases workspace rent. Interestingly, a few workers of yours are not feeling more reluctant than ever to come to the workplace, they call in and take permission to work from home. As a great manager you might be thinking in the line of renting out some of your space or letting go of the space completely.

 

Now if all the managers in Lagos are simultaneously thinking of renting out some space or letting go of the space completely, what impact will it have on Real Estate Business in Nigeria?

 

I’ll let you use your imagination but here is a tip, excess supply over demand will lead to drop in price, that said real estate business is likely going to witness a fall in office space mortgage rates in the Post-Covid era, will this be a setback or will it be a great opportunity to buy more and wait for raining days, to buy more workstations and flip to apartments?

 

It’s too early to tell, in the meantime we’ll keep our fingers crossed and keep you informed on real estate business in Nigeria.

Kindly share your opinion in the comments section and make sure to check back for more informative write ups on real estates