How The ‘Unemployed’ Can Work as a Real Estate Agent in Nigeria

The Rate of unemployment in the country is on a recurring decimal. The situation is so bad that some persons now assume joblessness is a career in Nigeria. The Nation’s institutions continue to churn out graduates yearly while those that graduated over the years remain jobless. The new ones come to join the old ones to form an association of unemployed graduates; the largest body there is in the country. The situation is so frightening that whenever ‘ASUU’ decides to down tools, the unemployed graduates run to the mountain and pray fervently that the strike action never ends. The rate of unemployment in Nigeria scares the living daylights out of parents and even their children in the various higher institutions across the country. Though the government and private investors can do a lot better than they’ve done, they definitely can’t do everything. The Nigerian youth has a duty to carve a niche for themselves where the government has failed. They can’t continue to wait for the government while their destinies slowly slip away.

Nigerians are known to thrive amid hardship, however many youth seize the thought provoking unemployment anomaly in the country to engage in illicit means of making money.

Who says you can’t be rich if you don’t do something illegal?



Already the Nigerian society has emerged to become a ‘self help society’. A bulk of our energy requirements are self generated using generating sets. Water, security, good roads and some other basic infrastructures existing in some areas today are the product of individual and community efforts. Bringing the aforementioned to fore, it simply means individuals can also create legitimate jobs for themselves and others without turning to crime or other forms of illegal businesses.

There are goldmines not fully explored yet, real estate business is one of such. Considering the massive housing deficit the country currently experiences, it’s no gainsaying that there are opportunities in this sector. The real estate sector runs on two fronts; the professional aspect and the non-professional aspect. It provides a platform to make ends meet or probably having multiple streams of income. The professional aspect of the real estate business in Nigeria encompasses rendering of services that require specialised training, certification and registration; for instance, estate surveyors and valuers, legal practitioners and quantity surveyors. These areas are limited to qualified professionals, anything contrary will be deemed illegal. Involvement in such activities is not for every Tom, Dick and Maria; just like it is wrong for anyone asides an Optometrist to prescribe eye glasses in the event of an eye defect.

The non-professional aspect involves the sourcing for and dissemination of property information, contact and connections and making brokerage or agency commissions in the process. Hence, the non-professional aspect is the reason for this article.

The real estate business cannot thrive without information. Real estate and information work in pari-pasu. Real estate investors and practitioners need information on who wants to sell, what they want to sell, who wants to buy and what they want to buy. Furthermore, both sellers and buyers have specific interests such as price, vacant possession and genuine title. There are certain rules of trade to every profession and real estate business is no different. A person who intends to act as a real estate agent must be ready to learn, work hard and persevere. Having a mentor is certainly an excellent way to have a good head start.

One of the key principles to making money in any field is to understand that learning precedes earning. It is your understanding of a business that will produce income for you. You also need the skill, expertise and experience in a field for you to seize bigger and better opportunities in that sector. If you understand this principle you’ll be willing and ready to work for free for any individual or company that is going to expose you to the skills and experiences needed to excel in your chosen field. And if you are lucky to be paid for learning, you’ll put in your very best and learn all you can while you are there. It is far more honorable to do something modest on your path to greatness than to do nothing and expect manna to fall from the skies

Most real estate practitioners have some little space for those willing to start at the lower rung of the ladder and are ready to work hard. And I believe that there will definitely be spaces for those willing to work for free and for a commission. That is, you are prepared to forgo the monthly salary and be paid based on your actual performance. Since, the lower rung of the real estate business that can easily allow for a non-professional involves sourcing for and marketing property information, anyone with reasonable intelligence and drive should be able to do this.

At every point in time there are always individuals searching for specific types of properties to buy or lease/let and whatever they are seeking for is definitely available somewhere. Your job is to connect these two groups together for a fee or a portion of the fees popularly referred to as ‘agency fees’. The professional or main agent that has been given the instruction to sell or lease the property has a legitimate way of accommodating this either by not charging your client a fee to allow him or her to pay you or by splitting a portion of his or her fees with you as the case may be.

This particular ‘job opportunity’ is peculiar to Nigeria and some developing countries. In many developed countries, such as the United States of America you need to write specific examinations and have a license before you can practice as a realtor. This is often the case because the field is highly regulated by law and ignorance of the law will not be taken as an excuse if you run foul of it. To reduce the incidence of fraud and unethical practices in the real estate sector of the economy, Nigeria has to someday get to that stage. Albeit time waits for no man. While waiting for the change to occur, don’t you think you should first be the change? Becoming a real estate agent may just end your travails and make you forget that there was once a time you stayed jobless many years after graduation with no Job in sight.

Now is the time! Make hay while the sun shines.

Sourced- Nigeriarealestatehub