What we have learned brokering property in Lagos, written for buyers, owners and agents. No filler, no sales copy.
The naira lost roughly two-thirds of its dollar value between June 2023 and early 2024. Lagos property did not reprice downwards. The reasons are structural, and they cut both ways for a buyer.
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Under the Land Use Act you never buy Lagos land outright, you buy a right to occupy it, and that right cannot change hands without the Governor's approval. Here is what the approval costs, what it takes, and what an unperfected title does to your resale.
5 min read
Certificate of Occupancy, deed of assignment, excision, gazette, registered survey, family receipt. They are quoted as though they are interchangeable. They are not, and the gap between the strongest and the weakest is the difference between an asset and a dispute.
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They sit on the same corridor and are marketed as the same thing. The plot sizes, the drainage, the commute and the title histories tell a different story, and the right answer depends on which of those you can least afford to get wrong.
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Two apartments in the same postcode can carry service charges that differ by a factor of three. The gap is almost never about luxury. It is about power, water and whether anyone is keeping accounts.
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Photographs hide drainage, power arrangements and structural shortcuts. Here is what to look at on site, what to ask the neighbours rather than the agent, and what to do before you leave.
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The off-plan discount is real and it is large. Whether it is worth taking depends almost entirely on the developer, and since 2022 Lagos has given buyers a register to check them against.
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Lagos now has two operating rail lines for the first time. The transport effect is measurable. The property effect is being asserted far more confidently than the evidence currently supports.
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