Talk of one property developer whose company is doing well in the industry right now and Adron Homes & Properties Limited will be mentioned. While other real estate companies are complaining of low sales, Adron is doing so well, thanks to the aggressive marketing strategy adopted by the MD/CEO.
That explains why everywhere you go today around Lagos you will see Adron marketing executives driving round in branded cars and buses, aggressively marketing their products. And he has over the last few years come up with several packages and offers, the latest now is the Ileya offer, which is currently running.
Last week, this handsome real estate expert, was our guest at the City People Real Estate roundtable session and for 2 hours, ADETOLA EMMANUEL KING blew the minds of City People team with his success story at Adron Homes.
How do you see the problem of Omo Onile?
Its a problem that has faced the real estate sector for a long time. The issue of Omo Onile and land grabbers is a problem that the government has left to fester. Each time people ask me about what I feel about Omo Onile I usually tell them that government themselves are the biggest and major land grabbers because the Land Use Act has helped them. It states that, land can be acquired for public projects and public purpose. Let’s ask ourselves how many land has government acquired for public use. All you just see is what they call global acquisition here and there. And when you ask them what they want to use the land for, they have no idea. They can acquire 2 million hectares of land for government purpose. But really for which government project? So at the end of the day, you hear government has sold the land to the Chinese, to foreign investors, and people they collected their land would now begin to ask questions.
So, on this issue of land grabbers we really need to look down at it from their acquisition, on the part of government. When they first acquire that land they promised to build various public projects and things like that.
We need to learn from the United Arab Emirate. When I look at their Land Tenure System or land ownership system, if we apply it, you will see that on the part of both the land owners and the government there is synergy between them. When I look at this system if we apply it, the issue of Omo Onile and Land grabbing issue will totally become extinct. It will not surface again. What they did there is that government is in perpetual synergy with the Omo Onile there. They call them the locale. Nobody in UAE as a citizen will sell land. They have all given their land willingly to the government being the Chief administrator. So when you want to buy land, you will buy it from the Sheikh of Dubai who has acquired the whole land. There is about 70% that will go to the government. 30% of that will go as royalty fee to the family that owns the land. And you will pay a certain ground rent every year. The government will now say the reason I collect 70% is that I will now use the money to reinvest in that land to build the greatest acquarium, the tallest building in the world, and things like that. So you already know what govern ment wants to use your land for. When they build that tallest building investors will begin to come. That is why they said Dubai is the centre of now. The whole world comes to Dubai. When the investors come they will now tell the investors that 51% of the ownership of your business you must go and get a locale. You must go and get a citizen of UAE to be a director in that company. When Adron first went to Dubai and we wanted to have an office, they told us we have to get a local person.
That made me to start probing further that, what is readyhappening here. I have never seen a beggar on the street of Dubai. Their government works for them. They pray for the Sheikh everyday that he should live long. And they treat investors well because you are the cashnow you are the ATM. They treat you well because every money that comes to Dubai the locale is getting out of it.
Now, let us look at Ogun State and Lagos State. For every land that is being acquired (don’t say you are acquiring for government purpose) Forget about that. But make sure that for every land being acquired the land owners earn in perpetuity. Nobody will carry guns or chase anybody on the land. The town will be well planned from the beginning make sure the land owners get royalty in perpetuity.
How do you see the new Omo Onile law?
We need to go deeper than laws we need to address the fundamental issues. People see the government as land grabbers. This is the problem. They will say when government takes land, 40,000 hectares, they will find out later that they only need 2,000 for the public projects, the remaining 38,000 hectares, directors have taken part of it some P.A’s have taken some, some have been sold to the Chinese. So they will carry cutlass and chase some people away. It will pain the original land owners that their fathers land, their great grandfather land is being resold at 2 million dollars or 3 million dollars and the government originally said it wanted to use the place for airport or a public project. What these Omo Oniles to want is for their families to earn in perpetuity and get royalties on that land. Then nobody will carry gun, nobody will be pure. They will protect the investment on that land what these families are saying is whatever project you want to do in that land give us royalties.
The UK has a similar thing there is Social Security. We here have land. Land in our greatest asset from God to mankind. The way the government goes about it gets the families angry so atimes you can blame. So it is not enough to xxx laws and say anybody doing land grabbing will be arrested. Let us look at why our people are carrying guns and doing Omo Onile. Omo Onile has become an industry. We need to look at what is the cause and address it. All the wars that have been fought in this world is about land. We have to be sincere with out land tenure system. What usually happens is government needs about 500 acres but they acquire 500,000 acres. No amount of compensation can justify in any imperpetuity. Never. Lets be sincere with ourselves. Let royalties be paid in perpetuity.
How do you see the recent Housing plan the minister revealed at the first City People Real Estate Lecture?
It is a nice one. But he is faced with solving a gigantic problem. Solving Nigerias housing problem is a herculean task. All I will say is in a bid to solve the housing problem let there be 6 Housing Ministers in the 6 geo-political zones.
Housing needs, housing design of a typical Hausa man is far different from the man leaving in Lagos. We need to take stock of the energy demands in the North, Lagos all over. What we need in Lagos is different from their needs in Sokoto. There is no cluster housing in the North. I believe we still need a housing expert to handle our housing issues Fashola is a fantastic person, but he will still need to be asking questions to learn about that sector. That is why all the Minister has been doing since is to convey meetings with experts to ask questions and pick expert opinion.
But somebody who is an housing expert will hit the ground running. He will just start work. We need experts in these fields Housing like I keep saying is innate, in born thing inside every human being, inside every living creation. And one of the things this country lacks is decent houses. You see them building house without drainages, without good road network. We don’t lack houses, we lack housing, infrastructures.
How do we now resolve the 17 million housing deficit?
First, let’s determine the housing need of each geo-political zone, since we believe that, Nigerian problem can be resolved by political issues. In the North, what do they need, in South, what do they need and in the South West, what do they need? So, when we get our calculation right then we can begin to say this is what they need, in terms of numbers of housing units to be provided.
Can you share with us what you have been doing in the last one year, because we also understand the state of economy has impact on the real estate?
What I have been doing in the last one year is work, work. The Publisher has been trying to get me. He has invited me several times. I have not slept in my house in the last 3 days, from Ogun State to Abuja to Owerri. I just came back this morning. So, all what we have been doing in the last one year is work and when you are working, expansion will follow suit.
Talking about your products how is it doing?
It’s increasing. If it does not increase we will not expand. In fact, we just opened offices in some places. We just acquired a property in front of our office to expand more.
What are you doing differently?
Well, I will say sincerity. First of all, when you want to start a business, be sincere, have a vision that, this is what I want to achieve. For instance, when I heard about 17 million housing deficit in the year 2000. I said if we were to solve 10 percent, which is about 1.8 million. How do we go about it? The energy from the beginning was to solve 1.8 million housing deficit.
Knowledge is the second thing. You must be able to solve every problem that comes your way in the course of doing that business. Then hardwork is also another thing we put in place.
How can we have affordable housing and how can we use mortgage or pension fund to access affordable housing?
Mortgage on its own still have a lot of bottlenecks. If you want to have a decent housing, you will have nothing less than 15 million naira to have a decent 3 bedroom bungalow.
What is the concept of affordable housing? How can someone who earns 50 thousand monthly have access to affordable housing?
The theory of social housing is the job of the government to make it cheap. But like the private developer like ours. I woke up yesterday I heard Dangote Cement is now 2,500. Dangote Cement will not give me free products, land owners will not give me land for free, I will still go and perfect my title document, get C of O, Iron rod is not free, and sand is not for free.
The cheapest of our product, the two terrace houses goes for 12.5 million. Now, housing is not cheap in any part of the world. I keep saying that because when I talk about housing I am not talking about the house. I am talking about the environment, the road network, the road system and everything put together. That’s what we are doing in most of our estates.
Most of our estates look like Dubai. We make flexible payment plan. Somebody just bought our bungalow house in Grand View at Atan, he is to pay for 5 years. If an average civil servant has been in the government employment for 10 years, the first 5 years of any average Nigeria would first battle with is marriage and settle down. It’s after 10 years an average Nigerian will think of own a house.
Adron is unique in terms of its marketing style. You are everywhere. Is that a deliberate attempt and how did you come up with that?
I keep saying the demand keeps driving us. I tell my marketers that you don’t need to allow somebody to get to work before you can market them. People are everywhere. People are at the bus-stop, people are attending parties. So any where we can talk we leverage on it. Any where people gather we leverage on that.
If you were to make a case for property developers what will you tell government?
Honestly, we can all work together. We have always been saying this. Government should see us as partners. Like our first project in Shimawa, we are the only estate that has light there. I had to go as far as Ibadan to get light. The electricity project power alone in Shimawa is above 120 million naira.
Government can liaise with us (developers), we can synergise. The issue of land title given by the government, we come together to plan it. I think with that, Nigerian housing needs would be met. Because government alone can not do it.
But with the current prices of housing materials, how would that help or not help the estate developers?
Under the umbrella of Real Estate Developer Association of Nigeria (REDAN), we don’t only have developers, we have manufacturers. Government can synergise with them and create an alternative use of building materials. Our Imota Scheme, Town Park and Gardens in Ikorodu, we are using bricks just like we have in Amen Estate. And when we look at this technology it’s fantastic. It’s far, far cheaper compared to sandcrete blocks. The bricks are hollow you don’t need to break the wall to pass the electricity pipe. And within 15 days the whole house will form. It’s very affordable. Government should start using it.
When you want to build the government house, the government projects, government should use it. It’s what we see that we copy. If government is saying we are promoting local material and we are seeing government houses built with sand and cement, Let local manufacturer encourage and synergise with government, then a lot of these items will go down automatically.
How many estates do you have now?
For now we have Imota Park and Gardens, Rehoboth Park and Gardens Phase 1 & 2, Grandview Park and Gardenview series, we have the Hajj, we have the Strong Tower Estate, we have the Peninsula… In Treasure Park and Gardens, we have the Glass House, we have Treasure Park, and Gardens, City of David Phase 1 & 2, we have Treasure Park and Garden Golf Estate, and we have Treasure Park and Gardens, Down Town Estate. We have in Abuja and a couple of others around.
What about the US and Dubai?
In the US, we have an office there. We have an office in the UK and Dubai. We have some projects in the pipeline most especially in the US. We want to acquire 5 hectares for the projects and we are calling it Naija Community Estate. This is to meet the demand of Nigerians Housing needs there. It’s a Nigerian Community, once you go to that estate you see Nigerians speak Yoruba, you can see Amala Joint, Clothing, and Attire.
How do you cope running all these offices? I mean everywhere you go you see Adron Homes?
God has been able to help me, in the sense that we have worked. my first 8 to 10 years experience was with government. I was with Power Holding. I know how a parastatal can work and I used to be a Station Manager. So I know what I need to put in place for a system to run well. When you start of your company you know who to put there.
In terms of Marketing, is that part of the previous experience?
Yes, I will attribute it to that. Work also, I have been privileged to work under CEO’s, I will keep giving kudos to them.
Majorly, PHCN taught me a lot because I was selling a bad product. You know PHCN is a bad product.
How do you deal with the challenges of your customer if you are unable to deliver at the appointed time?
It’s just for you to have a good customer service. We experience that also, especially when you have a strong clients base. Our client base is running over 50,000 client base. So, there are issues at time, it’s not even with us at time. Some of them are highly tempered. And one of the things we do at Adron Homes is we teach our marketers psychology, because they are dealing with human beings.
What informs your new promo. Buy a land and get a ram. How has it helped?
Yes, like we say housing in totality. We live, we move. We are starting our Golden Gate Cemetery. It is a volt, where you can bury your dead. We don’t want to make it like a traditional one. We want to create small, small house for the dead. We want to say that, even when you die it’s a house. This Golden Cementry would be in Shimawa and we are going to have that in all our estates. So, they don’t need to travel to bury their dead or bury them in front of their house. It’s a beautiful place for anybody to bury their dead. It’s also a place where you can go to visit. The project will commence mid next year.
We also looked at the season that’s coming, “Ileya”. People will gather, families will gather. They will be happy they bought a land from Adron Homes and they gave us Ram(s). And after this we are rolling out our 20, 20 Lemon Friday, which will kick out immediately after “Ileya”.
Last year we distributed bags of rice, over 1,000 bags of rice distributed. This year we are looking nothing less than 2000 thousand bags of rice, because our estates and customers are increasing. And people that buy outrightly all our houses, they will not only attend our End of the Year Party with Adekunle Gold, Kiss Daniel and about 3 more of them, they will also go to Dubai, from the 26th to 30th of December in Dubai. And if you buy a land worth 12 millions, you will also be given the opportunity. They will be given a ticket and all expensive pay.
What next should we expect from Adron?
A lot in terms of our housing products, we are getting better and better everyday. Anytime I travel abroad and I see good things I love to replicate it back home because I know housing affects our thinking our development. A boy raised in Akute and a boy raised in VGC there will be a clear difference.
Their developmental growth will be quite different. Their social relationship will be quite differs. So, Adron Homes will continue to set the pace in the housing sector.
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