Subsidy: Property Developer Laments Labour, Building Materials Price Hike

The chief executive officer of Convvy Estates Limited, Samuel Oni has lamented the current cost of labour and building materials triggered by removal of fuel subsidy by the federal government, saying it is affecting the cost of housing units in the country.

The Convvy boss, who disclosed this to newsmen in Lagos, revealed that the cost of labour and building materials have skyrocketed, saying he has been working around his finances and work’s ethics without compromising standards.

He said: “within the estate, we do some basic things by ourselves. Let me let you know that the cost of labour has also gone up. A mason or carpenter now collects N7,000 instead N3,500.  We have to go back to the drawing board to look at our operation, then scale it down so that we will be picking it gradually. We are not stopping work, we are progressing but our activities are based on scale of preference.”

Due to these challenges, he said, the prices of the housing units have been affected, adding that the increase in price is tied to the present economic challenges.

“Housing units’ prices ranged from N55 million for outright purchase. The same unit can’t go for that in the next 12 months.  When we started, the price was N48 million. The fuel subsidy removal is affecting our bottom line if you look at it very well,” he said.

He disclosed the 2025 deadline for the delivery of all the housing units, pointing out that, one uniqueness about the estate was that, immediately you subscribed and made payment, subscribers got all their documents immediately.

He added that lack of transparency in the area of documentation remains one of the reasons Nigerians in Diaspora are wary of investing in housing back home.

Oni said:” When we showed interest in investing back home in Nigeria, we said we wanted all the documents to be perfected before selling any of the property. And that’s what we are doing in Convvy Estate. As you subscribe to our estate and make full payment, you get all the documents.“

Having spent two years in putting Convvy Estate in shape, Oni is of the opinion that Nigerians, wherever they are either at home or in the diaspora, should be able to buy  land, subscribe or get their home conveniently without any hassle, without omo-onile’s crisis, without the issue of documentation.

“Documentation is the most common thing that is really a hindrance to people living abroad from investing in real estate back home.  For people living abroad, there is this kind of distorted information, process that you have to get this, you have to buy this, and at the end of the day after paying for some certain documents, developers would still go back to them that they still need to pay  for one kind of document that does not really exists.

“I am a Nigerian and I live in Canada, I have witnessed how things are done over there in Canada, South Africa and other parts of the world. I am also bringing this to Nigeria and that is the basis of Convvy Estates,” he said.