Moves to increase the nation’s housing stock got underway last week as Messrs Fourscore Homes announced plans to begin Shalom Place estate at Isheri North, Ogun State.
The firm has secured approval for the development of 420 flats and another set of 110 flats also in Isheri North, less than a minute’s walk from the popular Isheri North estate built by the Lagos State Government, about a three-minutes drive from Shoprite, a three-minutes drive from the newly built fire station, and two minute’s away from the police station, making it the ideal residential estate for prospective homeowners and investors in the property market.
The facility is being built on five hectares of prime land and each flat will be occupy 133sqm. Construction period is two years and a facility management company would take over the estate post-construction. The land area has been secured and made better through a de-flooding programme of both the Ogun State Government and property owners.
Approval has been obtained from the government and construction work has started on the site and on completion, each home will sell for N25 million but the reprieve in uptake is that there is an agreement with Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) so that prospective homeowners can secure mortgages at six per cent per annum.
Construction of infrastructure in estate would be handled by Julius Berger Plc, one of the most reputable construction companies in Nigeria, while architectural work is being handled by Play Architects, which have to their credit the design of exquisite homes in Ikoyi and Magodo.
Location and pricing are two elements of the real estate market that will play out to the advantage of prospective investors in Shalom Place, according to, better known as “Femi Fourscore”, Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mr. Femi Osibona said that the homes and the fittings/accessories in them would be of the same quality as those in Shalom Apartments in Ikoyi, and the investment is worthwhile to medium income prospective homeowners in Lagos.
Prospective homeowners at Shalom Place, he added would be given between two and three years to pay with “deposits as low as 10 per cent to start with but we can go as low as five per cent. Interested investors can do buy-to-let if they wish.”
He noted that elsewhere, developers ask for up to 30 per cent deposit but that he decided to go as low as 10 per cent to assist people buy the property. “Our rate is 20 per cent but we decided to do 10 per cent and we are ready to go even lower to 5 per cent. We want to put something in the market to help people.”
He observed that it is not that people do not have money to buy houses but that the deposit has always been the issue, saying “If someone wants to buy a house of N25 million and you ask him/her to deposit 50 per cent, they may not have N12.5 million but if you give them time, then they can do it.”
