How do I break into real estate in Nigeria, with no job or money?
How do I break into real estate in Nigeria, with no job or money?
There are 2 ways you can do this, but you must have a model in order to succeed. The two ways are as follows:
The beauty of real estate, especially in Nigeria is that you can swim with the sharks even without a certification to be in the water. Agency gives you this power, and you can run an agency with very little cash. In this answer, I'll be talking about agency alone. If you can get a grip on agency and hit it big, you can get proper education and branch into other fields.
Let's begin.
Getting attached to an establishment. This entails looking for a real estate firm you can attach to and work with. They may not readily accept your services as you're not a school-trained estate manager, but working with them will cut your prep time by at least 3/4. The advantage of this is having a ready model to work with, and learn from. Also, firms may not want to take you on because of paying you a salary so in your proposal (may be in the form of a cover letter) try and negotiate with the firm’s management to allow you work without pay. If they accept you, you can use their tools, receive stipends from them to take care of things like transportation and communication in the field, and then take a certain percentage of the commission you make as your salary. Maybe 60/40 or 70/30 as the case may be. It'll be very hard, especially at the start but it gets easier with time and dedication.
Going solo will ensure you have 100% of the commission to yourself. But you'll have to build a model all by yourself and take care of financing your tools. You'll also have to be accountable to yourself alone which makes getting things done a bit difficult, except you're a fire starter. If you plan to go solo, you'll have to hang around agents (mostly those on the streets. “unregistered”). Also, you'll need to package properly and advertise efficiently. When building a model, there are 2 major parts to agency. From them, you can have other subs and modify as you like. They are:
Sourcing. This entails looking for available properties in a particular municipality which you can market to your prospects (tenants and buyers). You can do this by moving around neighborhoods and taking stock of signs on buildings and calling the agents whose numbers are on the signs, asking them questions and making accessibility requests. You can also do sourcing through the monthly property bulletins and magazines. You can get this through mobile newspaper vendors. If they don't have any, they'll direct you appropriately.
Marketing. Marketing is basically where you hunt for people in need of property, for rent and/or purchase, let them know you have some, and link them up with your sources. This is where you'll spend the most and where your income comes from too. In marketing, you'll have to advertise, serve clients by showing them properties, linking them up with your sources or other agents servicing various sources, following up the transactions, closing the deals, and collecting commissions.
Real estate brokerage like any business or work has rules. Some set by God, and others set by man. Learn them, apply them diligently and patiently, and watch your efforts materialize into profits. Follow this thread and ask me questions where you get confused and I'll do my best to answer them. If I can't, I'll try and point you in the right direction. Best wishes.
- Attach yourself to an establishment or
- Go solo.
The beauty of real estate, especially in Nigeria is that you can swim with the sharks even without a certification to be in the water. Agency gives you this power, and you can run an agency with very little cash. In this answer, I'll be talking about agency alone. If you can get a grip on agency and hit it big, you can get proper education and branch into other fields.
Let's begin.
Getting attached to an establishment. This entails looking for a real estate firm you can attach to and work with. They may not readily accept your services as you're not a school-trained estate manager, but working with them will cut your prep time by at least 3/4. The advantage of this is having a ready model to work with, and learn from. Also, firms may not want to take you on because of paying you a salary so in your proposal (may be in the form of a cover letter) try and negotiate with the firm’s management to allow you work without pay. If they accept you, you can use their tools, receive stipends from them to take care of things like transportation and communication in the field, and then take a certain percentage of the commission you make as your salary. Maybe 60/40 or 70/30 as the case may be. It'll be very hard, especially at the start but it gets easier with time and dedication.
Going solo will ensure you have 100% of the commission to yourself. But you'll have to build a model all by yourself and take care of financing your tools. You'll also have to be accountable to yourself alone which makes getting things done a bit difficult, except you're a fire starter. If you plan to go solo, you'll have to hang around agents (mostly those on the streets. “unregistered”). Also, you'll need to package properly and advertise efficiently. When building a model, there are 2 major parts to agency. From them, you can have other subs and modify as you like. They are:
Sourcing. This entails looking for available properties in a particular municipality which you can market to your prospects (tenants and buyers). You can do this by moving around neighborhoods and taking stock of signs on buildings and calling the agents whose numbers are on the signs, asking them questions and making accessibility requests. You can also do sourcing through the monthly property bulletins and magazines. You can get this through mobile newspaper vendors. If they don't have any, they'll direct you appropriately.
Marketing. Marketing is basically where you hunt for people in need of property, for rent and/or purchase, let them know you have some, and link them up with your sources. This is where you'll spend the most and where your income comes from too. In marketing, you'll have to advertise, serve clients by showing them properties, linking them up with your sources or other agents servicing various sources, following up the transactions, closing the deals, and collecting commissions.
Real estate brokerage like any business or work has rules. Some set by God, and others set by man. Learn them, apply them diligently and patiently, and watch your efforts materialize into profits. Follow this thread and ask me questions where you get confused and I'll do my best to answer them. If I can't, I'll try and point you in the right direction. Best wishes.