Securing a rented apartment in Lagos state is now a luxury, no thanks to the so-called estate agents engaged by house owners to manage their blocks of flats or estates. They are saddled with the responsibility of looking for people in need of accommodation.
The high cost of land and building materials has made it unaffordable for a good number of Lagosians to neither build nor buy their own houses, hence the hyper-activity in the rental market where transactions are neither fair nor free from sharp practices. The Agents are at liberty to charge any rate of their choice since they are not regulated by any law or government policies.
In November 2015 I got a new job that requires me to relocate from Portharcourt to Lagos. I have been reading in the Newspaper about the unpleasant experience encountered by accommodation seekers. How the agent will advise the house owner to increase their house rent to make more gain. At first, I decided to visit Lagos myself to see things. On arrival, I was introduced to two agents to assist with the search. I put a call through to one of them to commence the process, and he invited me to his office in the Ago, Okota area, on getting there I met a dark tall man who introduced himself as Wale. There I was told to pay an agent registration fee before I could be shown any vacant apartment, which I immediately obliged.
We started the search and were able to inspect four 2-bedroom and three 3-bedroom flats on the same day, one common thing among all places visited was the demand to pay for two years advance rent with ten to fifteen percent agency fees, agreement, and commission. In some places, in addition, you are required to make an advance payment for anticipated damages which are not refundable in most cases. Even after several passionate pleas to reduce the number of years to one for it to fit into my budget, the agent insisted it can’t be changed. The reason is not far from the fact that the number of years determines the amount they get as fees. Since you are not even opportune to see the real owner of the house, you are left at their mercy. After rigorous and continuous effort, I found a good place but must contend with the extra charges. There is a need for change across the entire process in Nigeria, it shouldn’t be limited to the Government alone, even in our little space effort should be made to make life comfortable for fellow citizens.
Until the Lagos State government and the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV) regulate the practice, the estate agent will continue to make it an all-comers affair. There are almost as many estate agents as there are tenants in a given location, each carrying on according to his understanding of the ‘business’. The high patronage of these practitioners arising from high demand for rented accommodation, land for residential and commercial developments, and even finished houses for sale, has led to high agency fees, differing in degrees from one agent to another.
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