Integrity Must Be Instilled In The Real Estate Industry-Onasanya
By delivering houses that blend high-class contemporary architectural design with high-level finishing, The Address Homes is transforming the face of luxury real estate development in Nigeria. Mr. Olabisi Onasanya, the company’s Founder/Chairman, explained to a group of property editors what the company is doing differently, as well as its products and upcoming projects. DAYO AYEYEMI was in attendance.
Even though every business is set up to make money, we didn’t go into The Address Homes with the intention of making money. For me, the main goal is to allow us to accomplish something new than prior real estate participants and players have done.
How?
We feel that the real estate industry has to be infused with more honesty. We also believe that quality has been lacking at times, and that there is a need to accomplish things to some degree of worldwide standards, regardless of where you are. We wanted to go into the business and build constructions that we could call homes rather than houses.
These are residences that will compete with the best you can find outside of the country, but won’t break the bank in terms of affordability or ability to pay. People from Canada, the United States of America (US), and Europe are attempting to move. They are accustomed to a certain quality of living.
They enjoy entering a home and inspecting the fundamental items as well as the surrounding environment. We discovered that some of these are missing. We aimed to create a setting where you live in the Address Homes and are proud of the small offer. That is what we stand for.
Have you done the things you’re describing?
We have done our best, but we are confident that we will continue to improve. I’d like to tell you about a client who transferred his family from abroad and purchased a plot of property on Banana Island on which he planned to build. However, while that was being processed, he visited one of our properties and was impressed with what he observed. The project was still in the works, so we opted to get one. He moved his family there while staying there to build his personal residence. The estate is our flagship – our first project in the Femi Okunnu region, with a swimming pool, gym, security, and a recreation space with basketball, which his children adore.
So many films are now being shot on some of our estates. As a result, they fell in love with the property, and all attempts to move them to Banana Island were unsuccessful. What’s more, we continue to keep our property pricing reasonable.
What was his payment?
I can assure you that we are more cost competitive, but more significantly, we are more adaptable. We allow clients to tell us how they want to structure their payment during construction within a specific term. People frequently inquired about the payment plan. When they talked about it, I told them that the most essential thing was to spread the payments out throughout the course of the construction project.
We accomplish this by denying you access to the property’s title document. All of this has won us the hearts of a few people who have had the chance to interact with us and enjoy the services we provide. So seeing those things makes me proud, and it is exactly what I set out to do.
In doing so, we were also able to contribute to closing the housing deficit. Right now, we’re focusing on the middle market – folks with a middling income. We currently have over 250 units of residences under construction or completed, with more on the way.
I’ve already stated why we’re different. We don’t make a fuss, and we don’t tell you that using our services will cost you a fortune. We don’t only give over the keys to you in every estate we build; we also provide facilities management to make life in such estates as convenient and comfortable as possible. We also gave warranties on the construction for a minimum of five to ten years, so that if something goes wrong with the windows and doors, we will be held liable. We supply you with electricity, CCTV, security, water, and other services 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Could you tell us about some of the projects that have been completed or are currently being worked on?
Some of our flagship projects will be on display, but two of our current projects are the Luxuria on Alexandra Road in Ikoyi and the Dan and Dan apartment on Banana Island.
Luxuria is a 58-unit development, with nearly half of them being traditional maisonettes. There is a reason why we do things differently when I say maisonettes. First and foremost, we discovered that most individuals live in apartments. Developers constructed flats, but we discovered that when you live in a flat, you lose some privacy – you exit your bedroom and enter your sitting area. People who have lived in other countries are accustomed to multi-level structures.
We made the decision to do things differently. I was having a conversation with an architect, and he mentioned that in this setting, people would build blocks of flats and then build penthouses on top of the apartments. And, as I previously stated, the penthouses, which are in short supply, are the first to sell. For the services, people are willing to pay any amount of money.
Why can’t we develop a project where each apartment is designed to look like a penthouse? If you visit Luxuria, you will see the vast two-story space that we have. It contains two kitchens, allowing Madam to use one while allowing the chef to use the other; two sitting rooms, a bar area, a swimming pool, and so on.
