How massive NGOs influx shoots property costs in Maiduguri

Hotels, home owners now earn 5 – 10 times on property Property owners and estate developers in Maiduguri are now striking gold from the real estate market in the metropolis following the return of relative peace and rebound in economic activities in the Borno State capital which used to be the epicentre of the Boko […]

• Hotels, home owners now earn 5 – 10 times on property

Property owners and estate developers in Maiduguri are now striking gold from the real estate market in the metropolis following the return of relative peace and rebound in economic activities in the Borno State capital which used to be the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurgency nine years ago.

The major driver of this rising demand, for particularly residential homes, and corresponding rise in property prices are the various agencies of the United Nations, other international and, to a lesser extent, local NGOs that have flooded Maiduguri metropolis wielding foreign-currency and consequently incapacitating the middle class and low-income earners seeking residential houses in the city.

Very keen on securing befitting official and residential accommodations to house their staff, as well as carry out their respective roles in the management of the humanitarian crisis created by the insurgency, these agencies and NGOs offer incredibly huge amounts of money to rent a property, which the property owners and estate agents grabbed as they were far beyond what they used to get.

In most instances, these agencies and NGOs pay five years exorbitant rents for choice properties.

Property is now developed not for sale – one rarely hears of anyone selling his property now – but for rent, most preferably to a UN agency, NGO or their workers who multiply the rent payable for the property several times over (five to 10 times), depending on location, which the property owners and their estate agents immediately grabbed.

Why is a property developed not for sale, but for rent? It is because in just a couple of years, the property owner recovers the money he spent in developing and furnishing it by renting the property to an international agency or NGO.

Renting the property to such agencies and NGOs also comes with an amazingly added advantage: the agencies and NGOs often gather all the furnishing made by the property owner and return them to him, and furnish the property to their own taste, including the interlocking of sections, or the entire compound, tiling or re-tiling and their preferred fittings. Some of them often leave some or all of these behind when they vacate the property.

No property owner spites such ‘very kind’ tenants

Daily Trust investigation reveals comparative ranges of rents before the insurgency and now, taking 2-bedroom and 3-bedroom flats as examples.

Before the NGOs advent, a 2-bedroom house used to be rented at between N60,000 and N100,000 in the local wards of the metropolis; while at the GRA it was rented at between N90,000 and N100,000, rarely up to N150,000.

The N60,000-N100,000 that used to be the tent for a 2-bedroom flat in the local quarters has now jumped to between N150,000 and N200,000. At the GRA or any other highbrow area, the rent has jumped from the usual N90,000-N150,000 to N250,000 and N400,000 now which even depends on the section of the GRA or highbrow area.

“A well-furnished 3-bedroom flat at the GRA or any other highbrow area, which could be rented out to a tenant at, say, N500,000, is rented out to an international agency or NGO at between N5 million and N6 million; and this even depends on the section of the wards,” one of the most popular estate agents in the metropolis told Daily Trust (he demanded anonymity to maintain his patronage with the agencies and NGOs).

“Even large mansions and compounds with several structures belonging to even some governors, some of them deceased, are rented by such agencies at between N7 million and N10 million; and they often pay for five years,” he said.

“Even highly-placed government officials and very comfortable persons now evict themselves from their own houses, rent them out to agencies and NGOs or their staff for about 10 times the money they would need to rent the houses they and their families would live in. Many owners of personal houses make much more money doing this,” he said.

“In a baffling crave for quick enrichment by renting property to international agencies and NGOs, landlords now evict tenants at will, and they do so when estate agents or the agencies or NGOs themselves show interest in their houses,” another estate agent confided in Daily Trust.

“And they do so by raising the rent to a rate unaffordable by the tenants to get justification to evict them. When the tenants vacate the houses, the landlords rent them out to the agencies or NGOs for rents many times more than what was paid before,” he said.

During the investigation, Daily Trust found a house with an instruction written on a cardboard: ‘This house is for rent, but only for NGOs’.

Findings by our correspondent revealed that international agencies and NGOs have ensured that much money spins in the property business in Maiduguri metropolis such that even hotels are now converted to official and residential accommodations to be rented out.

Since such agencies and NGOs began flooding the metropolis to host their operations, there has been an increasing rat race by property owners and estate agents to court their patronage with the traditional tenants taking the brunt.