Situation is further worsened by the nation’s harsh economic climate, COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing youths’ protest on police brutality with associated destruction of public property, looting of malls, warehouses., among others. Many professionals in the built environment expressed pessimism over possible recovery of real estate sector until the end of first quarter of next year. They cited low construction activities, low new projects’ signings, low purchasing power of people, job loses, insecurity, dearth of investible funds, forex instability and harsh operating environment. Nigerians would spend the rest of the year cleaning up, threading water, stressing that very few people would want to or could make or take investment decisions in an unstable environment as we have currently.
Nigerians not to be surprised to see a lot more divestments “as people ponder at their vulnerability and the vulnerability of their investments.” Depending on level of investment, the estate surveyor and valuer stated that large retail malls would have to wait, adding that nobody was interested in packaging investment again this year. Demand for office accommodation had reduced drastically as most workers worked online due to COVID-19’s effect. Manufacturing concerns do not have access to good capital. Cost of building is rising, while cost of tenancy is not rising. Most landlords are battling with tenants’ debts. There is no incentive to build new houses. Nigerian economy had been in recession and that, in any recession, real estate sector remained the first casualty. On a large scale, he pointed out that housing could however be used by government to rejuvenate the economy by flagging off those already planned development initiatives that had been programmed before the issue of COVID-19. Analyzing the impact of economic crisis on stakeholders in the sector, FDC’s analysts pointed out that foreign exchange’s volatility translated to higher import prices for developers.