The unabating reports of many prospective tenants and buyers have indicated that they are being subjected to inflated service fees, bogus property listings, and demands for illegal payments before being granted access to available housing. In this report, YETUNDE AJANAKU, TUNBOSUN OGUNDARE and IFEDAYO OGUNYEMI examine these untoward activities and travails of house seekers.
AS the housing crisis deepens in urban centers, the unscrupulous practices of some agents have further compounded the challenges for individuals and families seeking affordable accommodation. This is because every year, thousands of vulnerable individuals fall prey to unlicensed property/estate agents who promise false hope and deliver despair. This growing trend has left professionals house valuers scrambling to regain trust of the people that make up their clientele.
Checks showed that property owners are increasingly hesitant to list their houses with traditional estate valuers, citing mistrust, high commission fees and inefficient marketing strategies.
According to a recent survey conducted in Oluyole Estate, Ibadan, Oyo State, a larger percentage of property owners expressed concerns about the mistrust between the stakeholders involved in the property business. This is just as they equally criticised the excessive commission fees demanded from house-seekers.
“The house agents are endangered species,” said one house-seeker, who identified himself as Mr Mayowa. “The agent’s commission was excessive. Before I moved into my new apartment, I was asked to pay agent’s fee to three different agents for showing me the same apartment. I had to pay them because I was desperate to get an apartment.”
Another house-seeker, Mr Gbenga, who lives in Kuola, also claimed that “the agent (he engaged) was evasive or secretive about property details.
“It was a situation of what I ordered versus what I got. What the agent showed me on the phone was not what I met when I got to the apartment.”
Mr Gbenga and Mr Mayowa are not alone in this struggle. Mrs Olubunmi Ogunrobi who is a real estate consultant, added that the reason why people fall into this kind of trap is because house owners are to ready to pay consultants to manage the listings of their properties, adding that most landlords prefer to pocket the agent fees, so they rather engage the unlicensed agents.
“There is no government control or price control on rent in Nigeria. Most landlords equally want the agent fee and are not ready to be accountable for it.
“Estate valuers charge 10 percent over the property and most landlords prefer to get the money, than pay professionals to do the work for them,” Mrs Ogunrobi said.
Mr Aduragbemi, a property owner in Oluyole Estate, told Sunday Tribune that: “As a property owner, I have been approached by several estate valuers offering the services to manage and rent out my property.
“After careful consideration, I have decided not to engage their services because of loss of control, commission fees and lack of personal touch.”
Speaking in the same vein, Yinka Faniyi, a businesswoman in Ibadan also shared her experience.
“In my opinion, estate agents in Nigeria are one of the most challenging unprofessionals to deal with. Their unprofessionalism, lack of transparency, and dishonesty have made property transactions a nightmare,” Faniyi said.
She bemoaned the excessive commission fees which is unreasonably high, charges that are often hidden from clients as well as misrepresentation and lack of accountability.
She claimed to have had the misfortune of dealing with several estate agents in Nigeria, adding that they consistently failed to meet expectations while exhibiting a lack of integrity and professionalism.
She suggested that government should establish and enforce stricter licensing requirements for agents and called on agents to also disclose commission fees and property information upfront to their clients.
“Clients should report unprofessional agents to regulatory bodies, as only through collective actions can the industry standards improve,” Faniyi said.
Speaking on her good experience with house agents, one Mrs Toyin said: “The last house agent I engaged is a kind man and one of the most trustworthy agents I have ever met. Many of us have been victims of agents that are greedy but he is a good person.
“He helped with getting an apartment of my dream and made sure I was comfortable without overcharging me. Till today, he always checks if everything is fine in that apartment.
“We didn’t arrive here by accident; we took small steps, one after the other.”
Another victim of unscrupulous agents, Oluwole James, told Sunday Tribune that “house agents are gradually becoming a menace.”
While house hunting can be a daunting task, especially when dealing with real estate agents and couple with the numerous cases of fraud and exploitation, it remains essential for house-seekers and house-owners to approach agent interactions with caution.
For Mr Usman Abiodun, a builder, the cost of house rents charged by landlords is becoming ridiculous every month.
“My landlord increases the payment under different fraudulent guises. It is either we pay for water or we pay for security that we don’t have. We urge the government to help do something about it and there should be a penalty for non-compliance. We cannot continue to pay double of house rent to agents as agency fee,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mrs Odusokan, the wife of a real estate agent, portrayed a different kind of reality being a beneficiary of house agent fee.
Explaining further, Mrs Odusokan said, “My husband is an agent and that’s where we both survive from. If people don’t pay we can’t eat.”
Similar experience in Lagos
The experience in Lagos is not that different, as accommodation seekers, particularly those desperate seeking a new place to call a home, always have one nasty experience or the other.
While the state government law indicated that no property owner should collect more than one year rent upfront from both the old and new tenants, many house owners still flout the law with impunity.
In Lagos, because of huge population and scarcity of houses, getting a place to rent either for dwelling or commercial purposes is always not an easy task.
That is not only about the high cost of rent, but where the property is situated which is also a big factor for consideration.
While some property owners or agents go by one year upfront rent payment, majority collect up to two years upfront payment or more.
There are other charges that are mandatory and also varied. They include, among others commission fee, agreement fee and fee for damages. Each of these usually is being calculated on the percentage of the total actual rent.
Though, the commission is usually 10 percent of the actual yearly rent, what each house-seeker pays varies, based on requests of one property owner to another. Some charge higher percentage of the actual total amount while some others charge something little lower based on desperation and negotiation.
The commission is paid to the property agent for his or her service after serving as an intermediary between the house owner and the tenant. In some other cases, the commission is paid to the property owner if he or she performs such role directly.
A male resident, who preferred his name not to be in print, shared a recent experience with Sunday Tribune.
According to him, when my brother-in-law was looking for a three-bedroom apartment about three weeks ago at Aboru area of Iyana Ipaja, he settled for one at the cost of N550,000 per year.
He was told to pay 10 per cent commission, 10 per cent agreement and 10 per cent for damages but he was able to bargain for a flat rate of N50,000 across the board.
“But when he was to pay, the agent who introduced him to the main agent in charge of the property asked for N250,000 to cover commission, agreement and damages because he saw how desperate my in-law was.
“It was after he had paid that he learnt from an inside source that he should have paid N150,000 he had bargained for originally.
“So, some agents who are greedy are ready to milk prospective tenants, especially when they are desperate for a new accommodation,” he stressed.
Narrating his experience with house agents in Lagos, an art director in a Lagos-based advertising agency, Temitope Ahmad, said many of the house agents in the state have zero conscience.
“Only God can tell what lives in the minds of Lagos agents. Most of them have zero conscience. My first encounter with a Lagos agent was in 2021 when I was in need of a room and parlour self-contained apartment. The agent demanded a mandatory form fee of N10,000 which I negotiated to N5,000.
“We headed to the first apartment. He took a bike while my friend and I took another bike to follow him. On arrival at the property, the agent asked that I pay his transportation fare. I asked him what the N15,000 meant for if not to cover his fare, among other things.
“The first property was far below my kind of apartment description. It had a small kitchen that a single person cannot work straight into; you would have to work sideways. The parlour looks like a store and I didn’t bother checking the room.
“I got angry and told him I didn’t like it. It was then that he said there are other properties that we should go. We took another bike, but he never negotiated with the bike man. On getting to the second property, he said I should pay the bike man. I paid again.
“The second apartment was two rooms in a face-me-I-face building that was converted into a room and a parlor self-contain. The kitchen and the toilet had no demarcation. I was livid at that point.
“With a budget of N450,000, I expected something better than what he showed me and I angrily lashed out at him because he wasted both my time and resources. I think we went to about five properties that day and none made sense to me.
“It was later that I realised that it was a pattern among the agents. Basically, they all have the apartments they manage. No matter what you request for, they will first take you to what they have to see if you can lower your standard for the same budget.”
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