While Nigeria’s real estate sector may seem daunting with its uncertainty and economic swings, Mosun Homes and Realtors views it as a treasure trove of opportunity.
With nearly a decade of active involvement and an investment portfolio totalling approximately N4 billion, the company sees these challenges as stepping stones towards growth. It boldly projects that real estate could emerge as the “new crude oil” in Nigeria’s economic diversification journey.
Ademola Adeosun, the founder and CEO of Mosun Homes and Realtors, in a conversation with Nairametrics, shared robust insights on how strategic alliances and credible investments can bolster the real estate ecosystem in Nigeria, creating untold wealth across various segments of the economy.
Nairametrics: Tell us about Mr Ademola Adeosun…
Adeosun: I am a family man. Having founded the business in 2015, it was more of a traditional family business. Since then, we’ve been able to upscale. What we are doing these days is introducing very rare investment vehicles into the sector which gives us our edge.
Nairametrics: Being a real estate brokerage development company that has just syndicated almost N1 billion. How do you see yourself in an ever-competitive market? How do you manage to stay on top in this sector?
Adeosun: For us as a company, it is important not to simply come up as a mass marketer. We continue to collate insightful values, through carefully structured deals. And these deals are the results of intensive market research. In a market full of several players doing almost the same thing, we intentionally position ourselves distinctively.
Nairametrics: What challenges are you confronting currently?
Adeosun: The top challenge will be access to finance. We see a lot of high-interest rates, stringent lending criteria and limited mortgages. What we do is that we continue to explore the different investment vehicles that allow us to bridge the financial gap. It takes more of a partnership and a forward-looking ideology to close this gap.
Nairametrics: We know you have a Syndicate deal of almost N1 billion in terms of building the mall. What are the next steps for Mosun Realtors?
Adeosun: For us, that will be a partnership with more reputable asset managers. That gives us the ability to raise more funds. Now, we seem to be awakening very rare vehicles in the real estate sector in Nigeria at large. We are like a centre of attraction for potential investors. We do intend to embark on more capital-intensive projects. And a partnership with a reputable asset manager will give us the support that we need.
Nairametrics: Everybody is talking about the cost of doing business, and rising inflation. We don’t see it coming down even though the government has promised us that it will come down. But real estate seems to just be the sector that everyone wants to be in. Is it the new crude oil?
Adeosun: That is one way to look at it. We’ve seen comments that notably stated that the bedrock and foundation of the Nigerian economy should be real estate and not oil.
Real estate is very crucial to the development of any economy. What we are seeing here is that several players are trying to hold on tight to several investments that have gone into projects. And now that is colliding with a lot of instability which is bridging a lot of instability with these guys.
And yes, I think that real estate continues to hold its ground when it comes to the dynamics of demand and supply.
It continues to create new opportunities. Even with the high cost of project delivery, we could see the market going at an all-time high. Yet we still see evidence of deals closing every week.
Nairametrics: Since we are talking about closing deals, let’s talk about this Syndicate deal. What other deals do you have in the pipeline? And what foreseeable challenges to this project and its projected timeframe?
Adeosun: Inflation is at the top of that list, and it births a lot of challenges. What we as managers continue to actively do is to identify key factors that enable us to manage these instabilities and be able to arrest that inflation at a certain cap.
Like I said earlier, it will be impossible to deliver your projection if you don’t do that. The project itself continues to progress on the original timeline and that is good for us. I mean even if it is not two or three weeks ahead of its original timeline.
Nairametrics: I can’t let you go without telling us about your projects. It is a huge deal. The Syndicate deal is almost N1 billion. Just tell us a bit about the project.
Adeosun: What we have done here is that we have created value in a very volatile economy. If we look at the deal from a limited partnership side, what we have done is that we have taken up the role of a commercial partner to oversee the delivery of a commercial project.
It’s a mini shopping mall with over 21 shops that are going to be rented out to interested parties. Once this project is completed, we plan to distribute rental incomes to partners for a certain number of years. After that, we plan the exit.
So, what we are doing here is creating value for several years. At the same time, giving those values back to the limited partners as rental incomes. It’s a smooth exit at the end of this circle.
