Amazing Property

Real estate The Nigeria’s luxury real estate market has taken a beating lately due to several fundamentals, which include stricter government regulations and economic factors. Developers’ over-exuberance and government crackdowns to check money laundry in the real estate sector combined to end the selling frenzy and leave developers, lenders and property investors battling to absorb the fallout. This backlash neccessiated high vacancy rates and drop in values to over 60 per cent. Recent investigations by The Guardian revealed that luxury home sales-or sale of homes priced above N150 million are worst hit and had continued in its downward slide. The sales response has been slow to non-existent. In the past four years, the high-end market have fallen on an annual basis, and peaked last year. This year, there has not been any sign that changes will come in the sector, according to real estate experts. The shift in the luxury market has been more pronounced, in Lagos, Abuja and ...

Some real estate pros are bringing foster dogs with them to showings, hoping that while finding the perfect home for a buyer, they’ll be able to find the perfect home for the foster pet, too. Kelcey Otten, a real estate professional with Compass in Manhattan,  will often bring two small dogs she fosters with her on showing tours to pet-friendly apartments. She’ll bring the pups in her purse on a property tour. “I thought if I could bring my foster pups with me on buyer tours, then I could expose them to a larger pool of potential adopters,” Otten said to the  The New York Times . She hopes that she’ll be able to find the foster dogs a home while also closing a real estate deal. “I do my best to be mindful and get permission beforehand” to bring the dogs, Otten told NYT . “Most of the time, people are just super excited to see a dog.” In the last three years, Otten has helped place 15 dogs in permanent ho...

Like many firsts in life, landing your first rental lease can be challenging. Landlords use rental histories to find the most reliable tenant for their home, which means first-time renters are at a disadvantage when it comes to securing a property – especially when there’s lots of competition for a home and all the other applicants have rental histories. So what can you do to get a rental lease if you’ve never had one before? Finding a rental can be challenging. Fortunately, supplying a clean rental history is far from the only way to prove your reliability, explains Julie Tagg, property manager of Paul Flynn Property Group in Queensland. Here are her five top tips to help you secure your first lease: 1. Find a guarantor Above all else, landlords want to make sure that you’ll pay your rent on time. One of the easiest ways to give them peace of mind is to find a guarantor – someone who can support your application and promise to pay your rental payments shou...

Tighter housing markets caused a seller’s market last year, with many sellers able to receive close-to-asking price for their homes. But we’re now in a market where new home sales fell to a three-year low and inventory has surged. Sellers that are trying to compete with higher inventory levels will need to be able to compete with other sellers. One way of doing this is by offering seller concessions rather than lowering the price of the property. Home sales remain strong in many markets, but in others, increased inventory may require concessions to “sweeten the deal.” Seller concessions offer, oftentimes, contributions to the costs of purchasing the home. For example, the closing costs, loan processing fees, title insurance and other costs may be holding many would-be homeowners from buying a home. The seller may offer to pay part or all of these costs. And when they do, it will be an added benefit for the buyer. The buyer may have $1,200 or their $2,...

Apapa is still a tale of neglect and abandonment of roads<br /> One of the starkest reminders of the misgovernance of the nation by past leaders was the seemingly deliberate effort to stifle the industrial sector that was expected to tackle unemployment. As many analysts now agree, Nigerians’preference for imported goods has also weakened the few existing industries, making some of them exit the nation’s landscape for other West African countries. One of the most stringent criticisms against Nigeria’s industrial policy is its inability to reform the sector and provide succour to the existing and dying industries. Hence, the ugly state of industrial estates created in the 70s to take care of rapid urbanisation, industrialisation and commercialisation in the country. The industrial sector in Nigeria (comprising manufacturing, mining, and utilities) accounts for a tiny proportion of economic activities (six per cent) while the manufacturing sector contributed only...

Housing professionals and other experts in the built industry would gather in Lagos for a summit of suppliers of construction products from around the globe with the aim of reducing the huge gap between demand and supply in the nation’s housing value chain. According to the organisers of the event, ‘Big Five Construct Nigeria’, about 100 international companies and over 5,000 Nigerian industry professionals are expected at the event scheduled to take place at the Landmark Centre. The Nigerian Institute of Architects, Nigerian Society of Engineers, Surveyors Council of Nigeria, African Association of Interior Designers, Occupational Safety and Health Association, the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners and the African Sustainable Energy Association support the summit, which would hold next month. According to the Portfolio Event Director, DMG Event, Muhammed Kazi, “The first edition of the Big 5 Construct Nigeria is raising the country’s building and constru...

Finding the right property is particularly stressful for families with children under the age of 18, and choosing the neighborhood carefully is critical to their home search, according to the National Association of REALTORS®’ 2019 Moving With Kids survey, based on responses from more than 7,000 consumers. The two characteristics that buyers say they weigh the most when deciding on a neighborhood are the quality of the school districts and the proximity to schools, according to the study. “Parents inherently make sacrifices for their children and family, and it's no different when shopping for a home,” says NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “Of course, affordability is a part of the decision, but we have seen buyers with kids willing to spend a little more in order to land a home in a better school zone or district.” Buyers with young children may also have different preferences when it comes to working with their real estate agent. For example, buyers...