HOW TO MAKE YOUR PROJECT ATTRACTIVE TO POTENTIAL TENANTS.

1)Screening of the tenant is the first thing that has to come to your mind, do a proper verification of the claims of somebody taking the house, where he works or what he does for a living?
What made him/her to leave his former residence, probably it could be default in rents, the character of the person you may have to guess the income range to know if he can sustain payment by the type of work.

2)Don't get too familiar with your tenants if you are a landlord, give the work to a facility manager or caretaker so that you don't end up loosing another six months before you can eject a tenant that is not willing to pay. caretaker, if not tenants will take advantage of your closeness and they will start to default

3)Treat your investment as business

4)If their is an issue that could be settled out of court in case such arises then do. Ejecting a tenant through court process can be slow in Nigeria.

5)Increase your rent regularly with small amount rather than wait for so long and then increase with a big margin, tenants are likely to revolt even when they they are aware that tenancy in that area has gone up. You cannot overlook that especially in a country like ours, where inflation rate is ever on the upward swing. Increase every two years or less.

6)Write a six months notice to you tenants before increase to coincide with the minimum six months notice used to issue to tenants for them to vacate your building.
So for any tenant that is not comfortable with the increase write a vacate letter along with the increase notice so that you don't end up loosing another six months before you can eject a tenant that is not willing to pay.

7)Treat as business your real estate investment.

Cities In Nigeria Most Advisable to Invest on Real Estate and Why?

This is a serie of some questions posted to me by one of my
subscribers which I will be writing on and sharing with you.
There are different factors that will determine the profitability of
your investment in Real estate.

1) Number one is demand-The rate of demand will have to come first
before any other considerations , a lot of reasons will make people to
migrate to a place, mainly for economic reasons .

In Nigeria three cities will come into mind Lagos, Abuja and
Portharcourt.

2)Accessibility to a town can also determine the real estate growth in a city. This is why towns in Bayelsa state may not attract real estate
growth despite being very rich in oil.

3)Availability of land and materials will also affect real estate
growth though this is not as important as other considerations.

4)Cost of Construction in a place. Where materials and cost of
construction is low and accessible then real estate will likely thrive
in such places.

5)Capital generation of a town will also determine how real estate will thrive in such areas.

6)Increase in economic growth will also make real estate to be
attractive in a town.

7)Influx of human traffic to a place will definitely drive real estate.

8)Attraction to investors will also determine how real estate will be profitable in a town.

9)Absence of good residential buildings will make the good and new ones to be very desirable to the populace.

10)Availability of mineral resources.

11)Availability of infrastructural resources.

12)Availability of transportational resources like airport, train
stations sea port e.t.c

13)Availability of communication facilities.

14)Good government policies and regulations-Lagos and Abuja will come
to mind in this case, recently houses are being demolished in lagos
because of improper government permit before construction. New investors are now more careful and afraid to build because of fear of demolition.
Getting the permit on itself is very difficult at present because of the bureaucracy involved.

15)Availability of natural resources.

16)Is the town transitory? Hotel will be good for such areas.

17)Does it have plenty of government parastatals? with this you can be sure of growth in such area.

19)War and trouble will definitely affect real estate negatively.

20)Good climate

Going by the points stated above,Abuja, Lagos and Portharcourt will
beat the rest in Nigeria, but they also have advantages and
disadvantages too. Abuja is good for hotels, for low income earners you
can build hostels as common in Europe. Political meetings will always
be held in abuja and anytime there is a big programme the hotels are
always completely booked.

But Abuja has developed to a very high rentage zone and total separation
of the rich neighbourhood from the poor neighbourhood will at the long
run not help the real estate industry there, that is why there are uninhabited
houses yet people are going far to the suburb to live in slums. But in
Lagos, in every rich area, very close by you will see poor neighbourhood
zone, this helps to create spillovers from rich neighbourhood.
So if you are an investor you can just get properties
close to these rich areas redevelop and clean up the place then you can
have the affluence of your neighbour rubbing off on the properties in the poor neighbourhood though very close to the rich.
Lagos has very high rate of human traffic and influx of graduates from
other states will always make it very attractive for real estate,
Portharcourt despite the kidnappings is the unofficial capital city of
Niger Delta the oil rich region, so expatriate are always attracted to
the place, there you are sure to make very quick and profitable
investment.

In conclusion, economy is the chief driving factor of a real estate
investment in an area and for Nigeria ,Portharcourt and Lagos towers
above the rest.

How To Check The Structural Stability Of Your Foundation And causes Of weak Foundations.

Foundation as the most important part of the building needs adequate attention for you to be able to sleep in your house with your eyes closed.
For a built building especially after a few years you need to recheck and ascertain all is well. These are some of the considerations you must make.

(1)Settlement-Every houses do settle without exception especially when it is newly built, but the effect is more noticeable after a few years of completion. The severity of the settlement is based on a couple of factors like how well the house was designed and built, attention to details and others. Settlement can be very noticeable in some houses when one side visually begins to sink, which will require urgent attention before the house finally collapse, the attention of a structural engineer is required here. Beams and other measures may have to be introduced on that foundation for the house to be saved.

(2)Cracks-Cracks may also be noticeable in some buildings foundation, this may be caused by a lot of factors like
i-settling which may be caused by loosed soil and is noticeable when you started having horizontal cracking.
ii-Soil moisture around foundation can also cause cracking and eat deep into your foundation ,hence is important your backfill the surrounding wall of your building and protect it from onrushing water, also water from the soil have to be channeled to drains quickly. Desist from making water settle around the foundation of your building for too long. Expansion of soil when wet will create pressure on the concrete.
iii-improper mixture and inadequate water during mixing of concrete can also cause cracks when concrete begins to shrink due to curing after a while.
When preparing your concrete make sure you mix the elements-cement,snd,water very well before pouring.

(3)Water movement around the foundation as discussed in (2)

(4)Type of foundation- You need to to know the right foundation for a particular building and soil type, anything lower than what is required may result in foundation problems, for instance introducing strip or pad foundation where you are supposed to have raft foundation may cause problem in a few years.

(5)Professional Handling-If not for anything make sure a professional supervise your foundation being the most important part of the building, but if you doubt the competencies of your builder, then you also have reason to be skeptical about your foundation.

(6)Mixture ratio of the concrete is very important and the professional recommendations must be followed.

(7)Types of Soil-If the building is on vegetable matter or on dumpsite and it was not properly cleared and refilled with adequate strong soil, the probability of you having a weak foundation is high. So before you build on any dumpsite,debris and vegetable matter must be excavated and removed. Also every materials and debris used during construction of the building around the foundation must be removed to avoid them been buried on the ground which may disintegrate and weaken your foundation.

(8)Improper filling or Backfilling of the foundation when not given adequate attention will also affect the foundation. For some structures you'll notice the surrounding soil sinking after few rainfall because the soil were not properly filled and well compacted. Foundations requires hardcores and it must be put in place to avoid too much pressure on the foundation.