House hunting in Lagos is not for the weak. It is an extreme sport. This is a statement almost everyone who has gone through the hurdles of house hunting in Lagos can attest to.
Getting a comfortable house for rent or house hunting in Lagos is faced with challenges such as gender discrimination, ethnic bias, single or married status, frustrating agents and so on and this has been a norm for quite a long time.
Background on the housing situation in Lagos
According to Aljazeera, Lagos is home to 22 million people and counting, more than double New York and London’s tally.
The city’s population grows by 77 people every hour as Nigerians from less industrialised regions relocate to Lagos to seek jobs and earn a better living. As the city grows, so too does the demand for housing. This has caused the high shortage of housing presently as the city is overwhelmed with people.
Meanwhile, there are unoccupied luxury apartments in wealthy Lagos suburbs, including Ikoyi and Victoria Island but so many people can not afford to live in such areas or houses which is why the struggle for affordable houses continue to soar.
Famuyiwa Damilare who spoke to Propertydome about his experience said it took him about three months house hunting in Lagos before he finally got a manageable place to rent.
“House hunting was very stressful for me, I met with a number of dishonest agents and landlords with too many rules. It was my first time so I wasn’t familiar with the challenges I came across. For instance, I encountered ethnic bias, a landlord told me he doesn’t want any yoruba in his house and that was the only reason he rejected me as a tenant”.
The 25-year-old man said he had to compromise at the end because he was tired of looking for a place that he just settled with the one he could manage.
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For Charis Akpabio, her last house was an eyesore because she has just relocated to Lagos when she got it so she needed a new house that she would appreciate more now that she is familiar with the city. Akpabio said she started searching online for houses and got in contact with a few agents who more or less wasted her time. “ After telling them what I wanted they claimed they had such houses but instead started taking me to houses I didn’t like and I kept paying inspection fees”. She said.
Speaking further on what she faced when house hunting, Akpabio said “Rooms of the houses were literally like cubicles, some don’t even have a sitting room, bad roads. Don’t get me started with the colour of paint in the house. Nothing annoys me more than the other fees we pay apart from the rent (Agency, caution, legal etc) Like, won’t I eat again? How much is my salary abeg? House hunting in Lagos is indeed mission impossible.” She complained.
The pharmacologist went on to talk about one of the landlords she met who said she had to be married to be a tenant in his house as single ladies are known for being promiscuous.
When Emeka Umeh started house hunting in Lagos, all that mattered to him was finding a house that the Landlord did not live in. According to him, his previous experience with Landlords who stay in the same compound as tenants were not good tales.
“I will prefer not to live in the same compound with any landlord. Directly or indirectly, there is every tendency you will be constantly reminded who owns the house. Sometimes it is like a master-servant relationship even when it should be more of a business relationship considering the fact that you pay rent. Even though there are a few level headed landlords, the arrogant ones are the more common.” Umeh said.
Ijese Akerejola also corroborated Akpabio’s story about agents. She said she hadn’t had much contacts with Landlords in her house hunting experience instead it has been agents.
She said that every house agents had taken her to had a problem. It was either the kitchen was so small it could barely fit her, the house wasn’t gated or the floors were not tiled and the toilets looked bad. Akerejola also said the prices of these houses were ridiculously expensive despite their issues.
