By PROVIDENCE OBUH

Mr. Chiedozie Udechukwu, an Architect committed to creating cost effective premium houses with low maintenance cost, also the Managing Director/CEO Mastermarks Limited, a company that specialises in Building Design, Construction and Real Estate Development, in this interview, he talks on the 17 million housing units deficit Nigeria is facing with, the opportunities and the challenges in the Real Estate business. Excerpt:

What are the opportunities in real the estate business for Nigerians?

Real estate has a great opportunity for everyone who understands the way to go about it, Nigeria has a deficit of about 17 million housing units and what this means is that even if Nigeria has one thousand housing units everyday; it will take Nigeria about 50 years to meet the present housing demands and that is if the population remains constant.

It looks like something that will take longer than fifty years and there is a probability of achieving this. What this means for an investor is that’ it is an open market, a market that does not have an end in view, because the demand is there and the demand is ever rising and based on this, anybody who puts money into real estate, under proper guidance will always smile to the bank.

Professionals also have the opportunity of coming together and pulling resources together instead of waiting for the client that will never come. Instead of waiting for the government that is not willing to finance the sector. The professionals can come together, pull their resources together and invest their resources in real estate and then share the profit. They can do it under a sustainable frame work.

What are the challenges in the Real Estate Investment sector of the economy?

First, the greatest problem of real estate in the country now is finance, second is the know-how and the right operatives.

People that have the money to go into real estate don’t have the knowledge, either they build real estates that are too expensive or they do something that looks ugly and therefore not attracting the right type of frame.

But in Mastermarks we have always advocated premium quality with low maintenance cost, so we try always to see that we work within the cost and then make sure the quality is the best you can find anywhere, and this is the opportunity anybody has in real estate but because there are no easy source of finance, professionals who could do the work watch quacks do the work and take all the money while they (professionals) keep running about looking for who will patronise them.

It is quite devastating that professionals do all the work why the people that provide the money for this project make all the money,   so professionals go on and on, finishing one job and looking for another, and never being able to accumulate wealth. Based on my experience, a professional can never be wealthy by his skill or salary, to be precise, anybody that makes his income by way of fees or salary can never be wealthy unless they retrace.

How is government encouraging operators in the sector?

There is the agricultural loan which is subsidized by government and there are other areas where the government has actually shown interest. In the Real Estate the government could support those who have a little to do much and they can do this through employing consultants that could access a company and see whether the company is qualified, check the track record of the company, determine which company is on the right track and also the company that requires support.

In that way the government could through the bank assist the Real Estate companies to do much for the nation and help reduce unemployment drastically. We advertised for one site engineer and over 500 site engineers applied, that was overwhelming.

These are people that could be rightly engaged if the right support is given to genuine real estate companies. I tell you, with one billion for instance, we could be able to create two thousand jobs, we could create 800 thousand housing units. We could turn that money around and get N500, 000,000 in one year because we operate with economy of scale.

What this means is that, we buy in large quantity and then add little mark ups, making the houses cheap, so we could sell faster, and because it is cheap, we sell great number of these houses with small profit and it adds up to a great profit over a period of time and we can do this many times a year, employing a great army of workers who are out there looking for opportunity to do that which they have invested their lives in. That alone could take crime away from the streets because this people will earn money and be able to take care of their family.

What is the relationship between Mastermarks and Teamaction

Mastermarks limited is a company that has been in existence for over 25 years.

We started strictly as a design firm in 1987 and by 1992 we incorporated Mastermarks limited in order to be able to offer services in construction.

Mastermarks metamorphosed to Mastermarks limited from Design Company to Design and Construction Company in 1992 and since then we have been offering great services in these areas and of recent we got into real estate development and real estate investment.

Teamaction International is an investment club which comprises of seven other companies, constituted as a duly registered limited liability company. This is according to the Corporate Affairs Commision (CAC0 rule which states that private limited liability companies can not take more than fifty Directors.