One of Nigeria’s pioneer real estate development companies, Octo5 Holdings, has again reaffirmed its commitment to making Housing accessible and affordable using several housing solutions promoted by it. Its Chief Executive Officer, Mr Babajide Odusolu, made the statement during the handover of Heron’s Beak Residences, a vertical community of medium-rise apartments recently completed by the company.
According to him, “We believe that the increasingly changing demographics of housing demand require varied solutions and most cannot be addressed by the Government. The key to meeting the growing demand is to innovate solutions that empower young professionals and families to own or rent homes with ease.”
He added that projects like Heron’s Beak Residences were deliberately designed to encourage and meet the needs of young families and many professionals who now work remotely by creating wholesome communities while guaranteeing good returns for investor landlords. He said until the average professional can comfortably house his/herself using monthly income or mortgages, the housing problem would remain insurmountable.
According to the Octo5 boss, although the exact size of the housing deficit might be debatable, the urgent need for homes with good infrastructure can neither be denied nor rationalised. The World Bank estimates that Nigeria would need to provide at least 700,000 units of housing to meet its deficit.
The Octo5 boss believes that while efforts such as the National Social Housing Programme, set up by the government to make social housing a reality are commendable, the challenge remains to find the significant demand for serviced communities and middle-income homes.
According to him, Governments at State and Federal levels should offer fiscal incentives to capable developers and guarantee off-take for public sector workers – with such incentives, serious developers would acquire viable land and build homes to address the challenges aggressively.
He stated that when the Heron’s Beak Residences project was flagged off, the off-plan introductory prices of N25m and N36m were deliberately set below prevailing rates to encourage early investors. Odusolu pointed out that all those who took advantage of the offers gained tremendously. Despite the subsequent inflationary and devaluation effect, their investments retained good value and delivered positive capital gains returns.
Speaking at the handover ceremony, an investor in one of the properties, Mrs Florence Oladejo, said despite challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, Octo5 Holdings delivered on the projects to the satisfaction of investors. “Having been a client of Octo5 for over 10 years now, right from when they were called Legacy Realties, I had the utmost confidence in their promise to deliver and that confidence has been repaid,” she added.
