Types of profitable property in Lagos

Short term development
Sale speculative purchases
Generational investments

Where then can you find property that offers you the chance to flip, speculate or work as a generational passive-income asset?

Eko Atlantic City

Eko Atlantic is the ultimate expression of what was carefully planned, well-funded, structured and city construction can look like in Nigeria. Despite the land reclamation, it still not as 100% completion.

Construction and new properties keep flying up even with the hefty 5000 dollar per square meter price tag.

Eko Atlantic is already the most expensive district in West Africa, and it’s not even 20% complete yet. When it is complete, it will tower over downtown Lagos, a self-sustaining exclusive patch of wealth with its own utilities, public services and even law enforcement.

2.Lekki Ftz Area

This is the area around Lekki Town, from which the wider 70 km radius area derives its name. it is the site of some of the biggest construction currently going on in West Africa. It has these features:

A new international airport
A deep-sea port
Several new housing developments
Dangote Refinery - the largest petrochemical refinery in Africa- all at varying stages of completion.

The main reason this area is on the list is because the sheer amount of investment and infrastructure going into it makes its real estate potential inevitably heightened.

It is relatively close to the established circle of middle-class prosperity along the Lekki-Epe corridor, and there is a near certainty that once the jobs start to come in, residents and businesses will too.

However, you should note that most of the land available here are undocumented yet.

Lagos State has only very recently got round to taking stock of its entire land mass in order to officially account for it, and this one of the areas that has really come into existence officially within the last 15 years.

What that means is that there is an abundance of scammers offering to sell you land that is not theirs to sell, or probably doesn’t exist. So, you need to be careful.

3.Lagos-Badagry Expressway

This area is one of the hottest areas in Lagos right now for buyers and investors. A proposed new deep-sea port in Badagry is also likely to pull more jobs, infrastructure and investment into the area.

The light rail Blue Line and the reconstructed Lagos- Badagry Expressway promise to create a new commuter belt which will attract hundreds of thousands of the growing middle-class population of Lagos.

You can purchase land and wait for its value to appreciate before selling it or add value to the land and sell it as newly usable land. Either of the two can be done here.

This is one of few places in Lagos with a large expanse of completely untouched dry land, stable and suitable for construction. As time goes on and more middle-class property developments will spring up.

You can also choose to make a large purchase to be developed for rental purposes, and then hold this for your descendants as a store of generational wealth.

4.Somolu

Somolu comprises areas of Bariga, Palmgrove and Gbagada. Somolu has some of the most recognizable architecture of the main land, with chaotic multiple storey dwellings and high-density bungalows, popularly known as “Face-Me-I-Face-You.”

This might seem like an odd choice for an investment pick, but as those familiar with the area will know, changes are afoot. Entire streets and neighborhoods in Bariga and Palmgrove are being reshaped and redeveloped.

Bariga, snaking from Ifako at one end to Akoka at the other, is now a buzzling construction scene.

Gone are many of the iconic tin-roofed “Face me I face you” and if their place, restaurants, banks, office buildings and new-build tenancy dwellings are reshaping the skyline.

Driving through Jagunmolu Street used to yield a homogenous scene of tin-roofed houses, wooden corner shops and the occasional 5-storey monstrosity housing 100 people.

These days, you will see:

Wema Bank
First Bank
New office buildings
Just Rite supermarket
Several retail stores and boutiques
Natural gas refill plant
2 petrol stations
Several new residential buildings under construction.

What this means to your investment portfolio is that this textbook gentrification scene is perfect for property flipping, provided you have the minimum N25m required to buy one of the existing 60s-era anachronisms still dotting the Somolu landscape.

One of the biggest real estate market movers is consumer sentiment, and once the sentiment is that a previously dead area is now undergoing urban regeneration, everyone instantly wants a piece of that pie.