The Future of Land Procurement in Nigeria: Trends and Predictions

Nigeria has a promising real estate sector, making it an attractive investment opportunity for foreign investors and indigenes who would love to be landowners. Despite the economic challenges and security setbacks in certain parts of the country, the use of land and its resources is a constant within the nation.

Let’s have a look at the trends and future of land procurement in Nigeria, what can we expect?

What is Land Procurement?

Land procurement is the process of purchasing land or lands from private owners for public use. This process is strictly overseen by laws that protect private owners and ensure transparency and fairness during the whole process.

It involves certain vital steps, including:

• Getting to know the land’s actual market value.
• Transacting with the landowner(s).
• Obtaining the necessary legal permits.
• Paying the agreed price to the landowner(s).

Challenges of Land Procurement in Nigeria

Earlier on, we discussed land procurement and some of the steps involved.

Unfortunately, this process also comes with some restrictions that discourage interested real estate agents, aspiring landowners and foreign investors from procuring lands.

Some of these restrictions include:

• The withdrawal of freehold interest which affect the free market economy.
• Burdensome bureaucracy in getting the Governor’s consent and approval for the transactions of land and issuance of ownership certificates.
• Underdeveloped or bare land that doesn’t have substantial commercial value, thus discouraging real estate agents and foreign investors.
• Outrageous costs of registering land.
• Long and stressful registration procedures that demotivates aspiring landowners.
• Unstable policy regimes that break morales.

Possible Solutions To Land Procurement in Nigeria

Now let’s have a quick look at some solutions that can be applied to make the processes of land procurement easier:

1. Amendment of the Land Use Act, thus making the process required to procure land easier for real estate agents.
2. Land should be made easier for aspiring landowners to access and use by the government.
3. A reduction in the cost of registering lands will be a huge motivator for real estate agents.
4. The decentralization of land management to allow local bodies to easily make land procurement less burdensome.
5. The long and unnecessary legal processes of land procurement should be ammended to ease private investors.

With the above solutions, the procurement of land in Nigeria should be easy and stress free.

Nigerian Real Estate Trends

In the current age and market, there are advancements, and parties interested in the Nigerian real estate, both in and out of the country have interests that they have piqued.

Some of these include:

• The growing demand for smart houses: It’s a smart internet age, and with it comes smart devices. Currently, there is a rise in demand for smart houses, making it a worthy investment and opportunity for real estate buyers and owners.
• Increased urbanization rates: With the rapid growth of the real estate industry in Nigeria, the speed of urbanization follows suit.
• Inflated prices of houses.
• Increase in regulatory changes.
• Increase in foreign investments

With these real estate trends in the country, the price of land and the government implementations governing it are likely to rise and improve respectively.

This will open more doors to foreign and private investors, thereby boosting the need for promising interested persons to get involved.