A special session focusing on property technology (PropTech) at the forthcoming 16th Africa International Housing Show (AIHS) is expected to unlock the challenges around housing in Nigeria by restructuring the housing market as well as unveiling various PropTech pipelines in the country.
Speaking with Africa Housing News in Abuja on Monday, the PropTec session’ lead speaker and the Chief Executive Officer of Octo5 Real Estate, Jide Odusolu noted that the key to aggregating demand, putting structure to the unstructured housing market in Nigeria is by using the right technology.
According to him, the session with the theme: ‘Creating a Digital Platform to Achieve Scale in Terms of Delivery, Retail Funding, Mobilization and Tokenization’ will assemble all the players in the property sector to reel out their PropTec needs while also proffering solutions to them.
He said: “Why we intend to partner with AIHS this year is to bring together the different solutions providers in the property technology segment and bring them face-to-face with the finance people and the developers themselves so that they can understand how technology works. For a day, they will be in a room; they won’t be speaking tech but English. The developers can ask them questions, same as the tech experts so that both can understand their individual needs as well as striking a way of meeting them.
“The magic of technology is that it simplifies everything. The difficulty of technology is that underneath is so much wiring that the average person gets lost. What we’ve been able to do is to speak the language of the street so that an average Nigerian can understand and take necessary actions rather than being scammed by developers that collect money and disappear.
He revealed that many Nigerians and investors are ignorant of how PropTec works, hence do not have a full grasp of its pipelines.
“Our goal is that at the end of the day, we’ll have an influx of investors coming to Nigeria to invest when we have the needed structures in place. We have those who have the money to invest in Nigeria, but they can’t because they can’t see the full pipeline. With property technology, you are able to define the pipeline, show where the resources are coming in, when they are going out, and then you are able to get results.
“The finishing line is that as a young man who just finished school, you can decide to invest in a home within five years and you will become a homeowner after the five years as projected”, Odusolu noted.
He said the session will not only benefit developers but will also assist state governments who are interested in digitizing their land information system, adding that: “the only way we can be free as a nation is when everybody has economic capacity and the only key to economic capacity is housing and that’s what we want to achieve with PropTec.”
Speaking on the benefit of the session to the end users, he said prospective homeowners will be exposed to various platforms they can buy and take fractional ownership of homes, while they pay installmentally with ease.
“What PropTec does is that it smoothes the process. For those who are already homeowners, there are PropTec solutions that make it easy for them to manage, monetize, and protect their homes. There are also solutions for those who have bought their homes. These days when diesel is gold, you can monitor your diesel consumption, track how much diesel you buy and consume, track out how efficient your engines are. These are all solutions that are in the market and what we intend to do at the AIHS PropTec forum is to highlight all these solutions and that’s where the end user comes in.
“On the sideline, there will be an arrangement by AIHS where people including state governments can go into detailed conversation to accommodate digitization quests as it concerns their land bank or create a solution to help states’ civil servants make timely contributions towards becoming homeowners within the shortest possible time”, he revealed.
Joining Odusolu on the Lead Speaker’s list is Prof. Olumide Olusanya of the Department of Architecture, University of Lagos, while Dolapo Omidire, Chief Executive Officer of Estate Intel; Ezekiel Bassey, Chief Executive Officer of Haap Living; Nnamdi Mba, Chief Executive Officer of House Africa; and Roland Igbinoba, Chief Executive Officer of Pison Housing will be part of the session as speakers.
There will also be a corporate presentation immediately after the PropTec forum to be championed by Sinoma – Fabcom Structural Limited, Protechnic Consulting Ltd (HAFELE), and Afamosa Investment Limited.
