Buildcon Showcases Pracht Gardens Estate in Lagos

Following the housing deficit in the country, Messrs Buildcon Global services has unveiled its new residential estate known as Pracht Garden Estate in Ikosi, which consists of 39 homes.

Speaking to The Guardian, the Managing Director of the firm, Mrs. Bukunola Gadzama noted that this is the first major estate they are bringing to clients as they intend to go further into the Ajah axis to provide more affordable housing for all income brackets.

The houses in different stages of construction come in four bedrooms, detached houses and goes for N45 million. The four bedroom terraces have a price tag of N36million while a semi detached four bedrooms is for N38 million.



“Real estate is one of the industries where the product you are buying, you can’t take it away until you are ready to take ownership and move into the building, so at the point where you are exchanging money, people are courteous. Also, from what we have heard from clients, a lot of fingers have been burnt in real estate so people are a bit careful and it takes a little longer to convince people to make payments especially because our strategy is to do payment plan for people, to pay on installment basis.

On the effect of the national housing policy, she noted that it hasn’t made an impact on purchasing power, as affordability is still an issue. “The housing scheme had this fund that made it possible for people to afford it, but now that it is not readily available, it is difficult for people to pay for these houses, especially the middle income earners. We all hear that there’s housing deficit in the society; however, it is for a particular set of people who cannot afford to put all the money at the same time. The ones available are by the private real estate owners which is still on the high side, especially because, the developer has to provide the infrastructure and at the end of the day we have to put the cost on the client, so this makes the house still very expensive.”

Gadzama noted that this situation may not be easily solved because the government have not taken a stand to get into infrastructure, which is an easier method to retrieve funds spent, “an example is road construction, the government can decide to put a toll gate on it but a private investor cannot do same. Even though payment plans have been extended, these funds are not readily accessible, some people get offer after a year or two and disbursement is another hurdle to scale; I haven’t seen anybody that has gotten those funds. At a point, I wanted to partner with the National Housing Fund (NHF) to do houses that would be in the range of 20 million but we tried everything we could and we couldn’t come to an agreement with the NHF. The scheme is there but I don’t see it working and so it is not impacting on the industry as we speak.”

Speaking on how she ensures that her estate is devoid of collapsed buildings as is becoming rampant in the state, she said, “I have a certified engineer on site that takes care of the buildings and then at every stage of our castings, I get the government involved and they certify us.” With the help of investors, Gadzama has been able to fund the estate even as banks are not readily available to give funds since they cannot wait for a long time to get money back.