Sa’adiya Aminu is the Chief Operating Officer of the Urban Shelter Ltd., the position she has been in for the past two years. Before becoming the COO, she was at the chairman’s office assisting in business development, real estate decision-making process. In this interview with IBRAHIM RAMALAN, Aminu discusses her motivations and plans to take real estate development to greater heights.
By way of introducing yourself, as a female COO how did you find yourself in one of the foremost real estate developers in the country?
Real estate development is a very interesting career which I keep building up every day, because my background was not in Engineering. I have background in economics, finance and development, but I had a real passion for housing. It has been part of me even while growing up. Shelter is a very much fundamental human right and how to make shelter really affordable to the masses really catches my fancy. I am married and a mother of three – very challenging children because they keep me on my toes. And I have a husband who is my cheerleader and I am his cheerleader as well. He has been the driving force for me to be where I am, I must confess.
As a woman COO who is in her late 30s and who has a wealth of experience in both public and private sectors of the economy, how have you been able to bring these qualities to bear in steering the affairs of a multi-billionaire property development company like Urban Shelter?
Well, I think it has been interesting to settle into this gigantic role. One of the first things I had in my when I took over this position was to have a complete control of reorganizing the company and this was at the time when we needed to look at a better way of not only becoming more efficient but also becoming more effective in trying to regain our real estate market share in Abuja, beside having a vision of organically growing the company to have a nationwide coverage, and even the west African sub-regional real estate market. So it was a good take-off because my board of directors gave me a free hand to operate. We then restructured our management team from 30-man to an 8-man management team, which allowed us to do a number of brainstorming sessions efficiently. Beyond that, we then put in place a strategy implementation plan where we intended to provide housing from the range of N4m worth of homes to N150m.
I must confess that the former MD had put in place number fantastic structures. We have upgraded our technological systems. We now have a research department that looks at how to create houses cheapest without compromising on quality, aesthetics and safety as well, because we don’t believe in housing collapse because our integrity is very dear to us. We then looked at how to really bring down the cost of selling houses. That is why we introduced one of the cheapest units – a Studio-flat that goes for N3.9m. It is really exciting for us because we know that nobody is offering that. We have upgraded our quality as well.
We have a VilleView project in Life Camp, Abuja – 5-bedroom mansion homes that are finished to a very high standard which go for about N150m. We have had a great deal of feedback from our clients in terms of how fantastic these homes are. So from that price range, N3.9m to N150m, we could say that everybody that comes to Urban Shelter there is a house for him. We are now working on about six to seven projects that we initiated last year. So we intend to be producing about four to five hundred houses annually.
Then, how has Urban Shelter played its part in addressing the housing deficit in Nigeria in it’s over 25 years of operation?
It is easy to build a house but it is more difficult to sell that house. So, apart from looking at price generally, we also developed our own internal of five-year repayment plan. As far as I know Urban Shelter is the only developer that offers this. No interest attached to it, it is a five-year plan where we should be able to transfer the house to you in year three and you finish paying the house while you are living in it. It is a very workable model. a lot of people are rushing in to obtain these house. We are not averse to mortgages because we have had a very interesting relationship with the Federal Mortgage Bank. That is especially why we recommend a number of payment options to our clients.
Arguably, there is currently an abundance of luxury housing in Nigeria (especially in the big cities) which is out of reach to the common man, what do you think is the solution to creating more affordable housing to meet the pressing demand?
I was in a conference with the Minister, I think a year ago, when the question of affordability was raised. What I said was that affordability for me might not be for you. The thing is there are ways you can empower individuals to build their own properties. Even though the houses may not be able to meet certain standards, but they are livable houses. However, I think certain number of measures can be put in place to make housing affordable. To start with, indices have shown that there are very few real estate developers outside Abuja. Anywhere from Sokoto, Zamfara have far less developers that are building houses large scale compared to Lagos, Abuja and some other cities. I think we should be careful saying that there are 17 million housing deficit in Nigeria.
I can’t recall when the country actually did a census to come about such figures. Maybe that is actually where to begin, so that we could know that there are so, so and so number of people needing homes and how to go about it. On the other hand, I think Government can intervene through Public-Private partnership (PPP) with the real estate developers like Urban Shelter and other capable developers in the country. In doing that, we should not look at it as a competition, but in terms of the mutual beneficial areas of nation-building. The PPP allows the government to give their resources and it also allows the developer to acquire resources and use their expertise in developing affordable homes.
What do you think of the Government’s efforts at housing development in Nigeria?
I think it has been challenging, possibly because they have been trying to do it themselves and I really don’t think it is their responsibility to take brick and mortar to build. It has to be a kind of a concessionary process where the private sector has to be directly involved. That is probably the reason why over the years, we have seen very little in terms of building structures. In my opinion, I think the government should try to avoid being the people to build directly. However, I do know that Gov Fashola as the Minister of Power, Works and Housing has been working on a number of strategies like the Mass Housing Blueprint cross the nation which will go a long way, and another one particularly for rebuilding the North-east ravaged areas. Financial sector has to be involved in lending money to developers to build and, on the demand side, in giving mortgages to clients to be able to buy these houses.
How has your partnership with the government been?
We have had a long history of partnership with the government. We worked with the Niger state government on a number of projects including affordable homes and markets. Recently we are working with the Kaduna state government on two projects. We have also been working with FCT on a number of projects: from the Garki market to the Apo resettlement market. I think working with the government is something that really pays off, especially when one understands the dynamics.
How could you describe the effect of the new Forex policy on the real estate development, especially the housing sales and construction?
We don’t know where it is headed. You wake up one day and see that the prices go up, and when the CBN comes with its superficial intervention of pumping Dollar into the market, the prices crash again. So, the policy has made planning very challenging. Over the last six months, we have seen a huge escalation of prices of construction materials from 50 to a 100%. Things like the Iron Ore, their prices have gone through the roof. In spite of that, we have maintained the prices of our houses.
We try as much as possible to absorb the increase because we really feel that it is a temporary transition. For this reason, anybody that has started paying us money for his house from 2015 or 2016, I don’t think it is fair to ask him to pay addition percentage. However, for new projects that are coming up this year, these adjustments are going to be put into consideration.
Considering that the new policy on the Mortgage loan is below N5 million now, what do you think is the future of real estate development in Nigeria?
While I think this is a good measure, I also think that a lot needs to be done, looking at the whole gamut of how the Federal Mortgage bank operates. I think the reality is that it is increasingly difficult to find a house of N5m. So it is laudable but I think they also need to look at further and how they can make the buying process easier for the client or the end user.
Then again, as the COO, what efforts are you making towards making Urban Shelter better than you met it?
To be honest, it was a good company to begin with. But I think it would be terrible to not make it better than how I met it. For the last two years when we came onboard, I have been running an open-door policy not only to our customers but to our staff members as well. I take on feedbacks, the good and the bad ones.
Because I believe they only make you better than the way you are. So definitely, to be stagnant is to be going back. If you look at the under-served markets like hostels, student accommodations in an organized fashion are fertile areas to make it. For example, we can go to Ile-Ife and do the same thing.
I also think that the North is very much under-served when it comes to real estate. Real estate developers can as well look towards that direction. More so, Abuja’s skyline will in the next 20 years explode. It is going to look very exciting and we are hoping to be part of the drive-force. We are hoping to be at the forefront of that change where Abuja would develop into a more metropolitan city with a lot of sky-scrapers similar to Lagos.
We also want to be at the cutting-edge in terms of proving real estate solutions in the areas of housing, retailing, entertainment, hospitality, commercial offices and so on. We want to cover the whole gamut as a real estate company. It’s challenging however, but of course it is very exciting.
