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The best inheritance a man can leave to his offspring is education. Education is very important especially when delving into any line of business whether it is either formal or street education. At this season when Plan B has become a must have for most company executives, it is important to find the niche that suits your talent, personality and character. Throughout this year, I would attempt to open the eyes of my readers to various lines of business and talking to various authorities in their chosen field; last week I spoke with Deolu Akinyemi on Network Marketing, this week I would be talking to Debo Adejana.

Debo is arguably the most influential entrepreneur in the Real Estate Market in Nigeria; he is currently riding a wave of over 7 Estate Developments, of over 8,000,000sqm of land, in different locations, all within Lagos and Ogun States of the Nigerian Federation. He is highly demanded as a conference speaker of repute, the Visionary and Real Estate Entrepreneur and Investment Consultant. He is the President of Prime Asset Housing Co-operative Multi-purpose Society Limited (PAHCMS) and founder of Realty Point Limited. Prior to starting up Realty Point Limited, ‘Debo had spent nearly 9 years in the Banking Industry. He was in a middle management capacity and was responsible for a portfolio of about N1.5 billion.

Ok, enough about Debo; I actually met up with him in his office and we had a chat about his passion to educate willing Nigerians on the proper framework of investing or setting up a real estate business in Nigeria. He has set up a school for budding and real estate aficionados which would not only take you through the ABC of real estate in Nigeria but the “street smart” culture especially in Nigeria. He has set up both a weekend lecture based school and a home based lecture school. This school is for those who want to be serious or are already serious about real estate business in Nigeria. It’s a must for every forward looking business man because there is no business without the mention of real estate. Please, if you are interested, please click HERE to know more. In the interim, you may enjoy the lengthy discussion I had with Debo in his office;

Q: Why set up this school?

A: I discovered that the real estate industry requires informed people to move it to the next level, because of the importance of real estate; it is the focus of the economy; there is nothing you do in life that does not involve real estate. Due to its demand, it opened that business up to just anybody, especially the agency aspect of it, it can’t be controlled, and anybody can be an agent. So the more untrained agents we have, the more problems we’d create in the industry.

A lot of things are happening outside of the legal frame work. Some agents get people to pay some fees before doing the job of agency and end up giving them unlivable buildings.  Another is the developers or the professionals in the business, most of them don’t know the nitty-gritty, and an average investor should be knowledgeable about real estate. A number of them don’t, they think real estate is like stocks that they buy today and sell tomorrow but it’s not like that, that is why some people want to build their own and they don’t build correctly, at the time of completion, if not for the money they had spent, if they speak genuinely, they feel like pulling it down cause you’d see water level rising in the house because of bad foundation and this affects the value.

So we want to do something for the entrepreneurs, someone that is interested in real estate business and keen on knowing what to do, it could help students that are still in school before they graduate and add the entrepreneurial flavor. Our curriculum in school are not fashioned after making you an entrepreneur, they are fashioned after making you a regular employee to go look for job. If you are an entrepreneur, adding this aspect of entrepreneurial class, sharpens your entrepreneurial skill in real estate. We run courses in all the aspects of real estate; legal, real estate law, construction basic etc. there are seven courses, one case study and one seminar session, plus the orientation. These are the classes one would go through, it normally covers a period of six weekends (Sat&Sun), also is the use of information technology in real estate business, accounting, ,basic issues as to real estate agency; how to set up and run your office, how to open your account and having your business registered, how to get clients and duties to them, managing your staff, duties to your principals and vendors, turning your agency into a real estate business.

Q: If I am a worker in a bank and my mind is on real estate, will this course adequately sensitize me toward the real estate business despite the fact that I have never in my life studied real estate?

A: it will adequately do that; the course is structured in such a way that, whether one is a novice, or has little knowledge about real estate or an expert, it is important to integrate this course into your portfolio. One can also be an expert in one area of real estate or you want to broaden your knowledge across the other areas of real estate, we start on the basis of not assuming that you know anything, then we build you up to the level you can function effectively running your business, later there are advanced program that will now specialize you in other areas of real estate. This is the first course that one will need. It will interest you to know that even those who went to the university to study estate management has been attending this program, The training is a blend of class and practical and thereafter there is a mentorship program, the lecturer and the contact you make can establish you. we also have a very important tool we brought out that anybody participating in our program either directly coming to the school or having our home service pack can have even for a trial basis for thirty days, especially for those interested in investment or the agency part of the business.

Q:  Is the course divided?

A: It’s a single course

Q: So why specialization?

A: the course takes you through every aspect of real estate, that can make you run a business out of it, but if you want to specialize in one aspect such as being a developer, then you’ll need the advanced course, or for someone who wants to be a real estate investor can build their portfolio then get an advanced course in real estate investment. Also there is an internet based community that we have wherein people share information on or for people who want to rent or buy, and that’s what the business is all about, people share information in a way that can help you trade part of the information you have and this is for anybody participating in our program either directly coming to the school or having our home service pack can have even for a trial basis for thirty days, especially for the investment or the agency part of the business. This thereby helps you give good value to your principal. This is to say when you participate in this program; there are so many leverages for you.

Q: If I am not really interested in real estate, I like entrepreneurship, and I am also working right now but I am prepared to leave my job, could this be a boost if I get the home study course to read through it, are there some entrepreneurial principles I can gather to push me through.

A: especially in the case study and in the seminar session, there are a number of people who are gainfully employed and are doing real estate part time and also doing it big time, a number of them had to leave their jobs after stabilizing, so there is a way you can build it while you are at work, I usually share a principle in our orientation program, real estate is one of the easiest business to start, almost with no capital.

Q: Did you start as an agent?

A: Yes in a way, I started as an information marketer in real estate, I started by doing seminars, getting people to facilitate and by publishing a magazine, the next level was the agency aspect and from then on it was a blast and I did that without any money, it’s about information, you can start it on a part time for example, marketing information where you develop into creating your own market.

Q: Is there a certification that enables banks invest into a person proven to know this business to a profitable state?

A: We give  certification of participation, the program is for knowledge seekers and not for certificate seekers, however as a school we are perfecting an arrangement for a diploma program, if you finish our entrepreneurship program if you are really interested in certification especially in the area of ethics of being an agent  you can start our advanced program which prepares you for certification in NIES exams, the other angle to it is what we are preparing which is having a fund that is dedicated fund to those presenting their real estate business idea. This makes money for both parties on either loan or equity arrangement, this is not necessarily from any bank, there are investors for that fund. This would be like the “Dragons Den” where there would be a panel to ascertain on the viability of the presentation.

Q: what are the challenges of the real estate business?

A: one is the legalities, real estate is all about land and it will interest you to know that nobody owns land, we only have interest in land and the interest is indicated by the document you have, and that’s why we have a lot of court cases. The base commodity we have is land and it is not moveable, cannot talk, e.g. if you take a person to a land and the person pays for it, a documentation is given, if the next day you give to another person the land will not scream out no! I was sold yesterday to another person, it’s the same land, you can’t manufacture it and give the other person another one, so you have to be careful in your transaction, that’s why a developer or agent needs to have this knowledge, just like any other kind of business you need to do due diligence in what you are marketing and who you are marketing it to, you can get a client a house after paying his initial payment,  the next time of he is to pay, it becomes an issue and after legal terms come in he can live in the house for the next five year without paying a dime. Or he can live in the house and when he leaves, it can be a serious mess. So it’s not so much about the money, in a nutshell,l the money is important but also the character of the client. You can lose money and can make money in real estate business, just like any other business, there are pit holes too.

Q: what can people who are already doing well in another business but want to divert some of their wealth to real estate gain out of this program?

A: a lot of people that I’ve met who do what I call “land lording”, who go build a house and let it out have said if they had know they won’t have gone into “land lording”, they would better give it to a manager, or if they know what they know now, they wouldn’t build were they built their house. I don’t consider real estate business in Nigeria to be good if the rental income does not pay for cost of the building in maximum of ten years, you’d see a lot of this buildings around twenty years they are still trying to make up the cost of the building, and when you build for rental you need to determine the kind of tenant you want and whether you can get those kinds of tenants in the area you are building. Location is important; some people would build duplex in a place that nobody would want to live in when a flat or self-contain would have gone faster. They get less money on the duplex compare to if they had built a flat there. These are the things every investor has to know. How do I decide this is what I should go into, how do I know my returns, my projections, am I ready for the troubles of “land lording”. Worldwide you still have tenants that will not pay and legality is applied in a timely fashion, not to talk of Nigeria where law takes forever.

Q: the fee for the program, how do you justify that?

A: for the material, there are some text books that would be including in that material and networking tool (data of people that are in this practice) they can contact, the typical school program that we run will just cost about fifty thousand Naira but before the end of the year it going cost about fifty-five or sixty because of some additional benefits we are bringing on board. The ones attending the program for six weekends will be spending time and money and the other guys would do theirs in the comfort of their home. To cap it up If you’re buying the home course, we live a day that we encourage you to come for the certification program, it will facilitate your networking and we can put a face to your program, and you’d be absorbed into the alumni.

If you read this to the end, you surely know the importance of this program; please click HERE to show interest. Have a lovely weekend!