 My inflation is a universal concern and Nigeria is no exception. Rapid price increases in construction materials, labor costs and even land prices can disrupt project timelines and budgets. In such an environment, it becomes essential to reassess strategies and adapt to the change in landscape. Now, my guest Oladeji Adilye is a seasoned professional with a diverse background spanning industries such as oil and gas, hospitality and telecom, with almost a decade of real estate expertise. He is the visionary founder of Fine Breaks Properties and Investment Limited. His dedication to alleviating Nigeria's housing deficit prepares his leadership where he guides a motivated team. He joins me now as we discuss how to unravel the elements contributing to failures in real estate startups. Many thanks for joining me, Oladeji. Thank you. Alright, like I said in my introduction, Nigeria is actually facing its own share of inflation and other macroeconomic challenges. But specifically, what are the foundational aspects that, you know, militate against the growth of real estate, specifically for startups who fail in less than five years? Thank you, my brother. I think the first thing that we need to know is information. We need to understand the dynamics of the market. It's very, very important. Real estate business is just like every other business. But the truth of the matter is there are things that you need to know that are unique to the real estate industry. So before you can say you want to start up anything first, you need that information. You need to understand the dynamics. Every business is our own, I mean its own dynamic, sorry. Real business is our own dynamics and if you don't understand this, there's no way you can be able to do whatever you need to do. After understanding this, then you need to also know what, you need to create your niche. What exactly am I doing? What value am I bringing to the table? When you know all those things then you can be able to plan your way through. A lot of, it's good that today we have youths, youths are taking over businesses, we're having CEOs everywhere, managing directors everywhere, the Gen Zs are taking over, which is good. I'm also a Gen Z, so it's fine but we need to plan. A lot of us don't plan, we just jump into it because my friend is doing it and I see that my friend do not have a car today, tomorrow he's driving a car, I want to do it too. So yeah it's good, any business that is viable, you see a lot of persons that want to do it, but again you need to plan your way. For us we plan, we have a milestone, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years and we know what we want to achieve in 3 years, we know what we want to achieve in 5 years, we know what we want to achieve in 10 years. So you need this, it's very very important to plan. The first like I said is to understand it, have an information about it, understand the dynamics, then you need to then plan, okay I've understood it, this is the way I want to run it, this is the way I want to do it. So these things are basics and they are important, they are fundamentals, if you don't have this there's no way you can move forward. It is when you are able to plan that you know the kind of team you want to bring in. Alright thank you Digi, I know the place of, you've talked about education and planning, but for startups who actually attend to failing in less than 5 years, where do they go to get the right education and knowledge and know exactly how to plan, you talked about milestones, 5, 10, 15 years, how do they get this knowledge? Okay so the thing is learning is continuous, you can't stop it, you need to keep learning. For us we do that too, however experience is also important, there's a place of mentorship and there's a place of you having the experience. Now what the mentorship, the mentor would do for you is to streamline your scope of experience, to tell you that okay you don't need to go that far, I've gone there before, I've seen the way it is, you don't need to go that same way, you can then look at it and say okay I think I can play around it instead of going through maybe going like a five years whatever, you can do it within a year and still achieve what you need to achieve and there are a lot of real estate schools around. We that are established, we also train people to do that you know but if you don't learn these things, if you don't learn it, there's no way you can't succeed in it. So there's a lot of platform, even online you can learn how to do, real estate business is just like every other business, it's just that you need to just understand some customise or unique dynamics about it but it's just like every other business. It's like every other business but then it's not an all commerce affair. Yeah yeah maybe, maybe it's not but again like I said if you understand business you can do real estate, all you need to do is just get a mentor that can mentor you, you know, understand some persons that have achieved in not just any other person, people that have truly achieved that you can say okay these ones have done this, they have achieved this. If you want to go into construction, I can just jump into construction. Yeah I studied accounting, but now I'm doing construction. I understood these some persons, I understood they ask questions, I went to schools, you know I'm running a program, I've done that before, I'm starting another one in Lagos Business School that tells me, you know, teaches me some things I need to know about real estate. So you can learn in all aspects of life, either go to the real estate institution that we have around the good one, not just any one or get a mentor that can help you or you look for, you join a real estate team and understand them so that you can have a practical experience. So the place of learning and education cannot be overemphasized. Okay let's talk about some people because I don't know if it's them putting their horse before the carts or cart before the horse as the case may be, but the thing is that over time you find some of them, I don't know if they're just been on screw pillars or something, but they tend to promote lots of business real estate opportunities, they tell you you can invest in this estate, you can invest here. So over time they tend to collect people's money, you know, and they're supposed to allot lands, landed properties to them, but over time you find that that they are issues, is it that they did not do their right planning or they did not set so the land grabbers or the community chiefs or what exactly are the issues, because they tend to collect money and at the end of the day people are looking for them here to scout them. So I was somewhere and I was discussing about the pitfall in real estate investment, I think I mentioned this too. Any business in the world or maybe in Nigeria, knowing the world that is viable, you see a lot of persons want to go into it, the business is selling, is making money, I see my mates, they are driving good cars, they are not doing yaw yaw yaw, you ask them what are they doing, they say they are into real estate business. So somebody says like money. Exactly. So the business is viable and any business that is viable, you see a lot of persons going into it. Now, it takes time, it takes consistency for people who are really serious to prove a point. It's not everybody that is going into the business that really want to add value, some just want to go there. But these days, they turn real estate business to show business. How so? Yeah, because I want to drive the best car and someone that is selling land somewhere that is having just 3A car, is driving a car of 80 million, is having like four different models, is having PA, is having this, is having that without proper planning. So a lot of distraction is there. Now, when the purpose, there's a say that when the purpose of a thing is not known, abuse is inevitable. If you know the reason why you're doing this and you really want to stay, I tell my client, I tell people that I don't want to be in the business because I just want to make money. Yeah, I want to make money, but I also want to add value. I want people to talk about my business, the way they are talking about Coca-Cola today. I want people to talk about my business, the way they are talking about the dango taste, the alabu kung of today. I heard that alabu kung is over 100 years. I also want to do, run a business like that. And in fact, I was, I was partnering with some persons before, but when I saw that they got distracted, I had to leave to start up my own, because I know where I'm going. So it's about focus. It's about focus. You have to be focused. If you're not focused, you get distracted. A lot of, like I said, money distracts you. You see money, you look at your account, you've seen 100 million, 200 million, 500 million. Ah, you're looking at, okay, what can I buy now? Okay, I want to travel this, I want to go here, I want to do that, without doing what you are supposed to do. Due to legends. And when you have too much money, you just keep throwing it everywhere. And that's a place of the information I talked about earlier. It's important that you are well informed before you go into the business, because there are a lot of, the more the money, the more the challenges. And it's very, very risky. The challenges, real estate can take you up in a second and bring you down less than a second. So it's crazy. So you have to understand this. If you don't, there might be a problem. Okay, fine. In as much as you talked about information and being focused and all of that, can we look at other pitfalls that are inherent in the real estate market? There are a lot of pitfalls in the real estate market. The first one is information. Another thing is financing. Financing is key. I thought there was so much money to play with in real estate. So yeah, there is, but it's for those that are well established. I will put my money if I don't trust you. True. I will put my money if I can trust you. Or probably I have someone that can vouch for you. So if you don't get those things, if you are just starting up, you might not be able to get that. So funding might be your problem. And I pray that Anjia will change soon because he's not really helping. Banks are not even looking at your side because you are just new. They can't tell what you can do. They can't answer. But you don't have a track record. Exactly, no track record. So funding is another problem. If you don't have good financing, it's a problem. Aside from people borrowing your money, there are a lot of regulations that you need to abide with. And failure to do this can bring you down. If you are doing construction, there are processes. If you don't do all those things, it can bring you down. But because I want to quickly make money, I don't have good intention initially. I just want to quickly make money. I won't go through those processes. I want to bypass the process. And if issues happen at the end of the day, it affects me. Another problem again that I can talk about is client retention. A lot of us don't have the ability to retain our clients. What is that an issue really? Yeah, it is because if you are servicing me, if I need your service and you are able to service me, you are able to provide my desire for me. You should be able to follow through. A lot of us don't do that. Now I can pick my calls. Client can call me just because I have some millions of NERA in my account. I'll give my phone to the PA. They want to talk to me. They can't talk to me. Even my partners in the business can't talk to me. People can advise me. I feel like I know too much because I've been able to do one or two things. Those things are also a problem. Okay, so I haven't looked at that. I know some people started business or the real estate business. Let's say they still test startups as it were. They started that maybe some two years ago and now this year we had a change of administration and the macroeconomic environment has been changed over time with different policies. So how far would you say or how much would you say the macroeconomic indices affect startups in the real estate business? So we all know that, like I said, it's still part of the funding because these days people don't even want to invest in real estate. They're even bound to tell you that they don't give loans to real estate companies because people are not buying property as such to them. They think the market demand is dropping because of inflation everywhere. You're having price increases everywhere. In fact, people want to eat first before they start thinking of buying houses and stuff. And people in the hospital that feel they want to do business, not those that just want to buy for residential or whatever. Those that want to do business in Nigeria, they're looking at the exchange rate and it's not encouraging for them. So most of them are taking their money out. So it has really, really affected a lot of startup companies. If not just startup companies, most of the companies are really being affected. But I hope this new administration, they are going to do some things to caution the effects. Okay, so fine. What would you really advise? Now, I know we've talked about some of the challenges that are facing real estate development in the country. But some people, despite the challenges, they still want to linger in the business. They still feel that there's much to be done. For someone who is just really starting out right now, and you've talked about education, you've talked about information and focus now. So what other aspects should he be focusing on aside from this client retention that you've talked about? There's a say that not all things are glitters are gold. True. You need to understand this ab initio that is not because the business is viable. It will have its own challenges. There are unique challenges, unique challenges. I can't start mentioning on her. So you need to be ready for this challenge. There's a level you get in business that you play to. So it takes additional information, additional knowledge. It takes people to push you further than the way you are. So you need to be ready to be mentored. You need to be ready for any challenges that come. Challenges come in different manners. The challenge you're going to face in this project might be different from the one you face in this project. So it comes in a unique system. So you need to be ready for this. And your purpose needs to be clear. You need to have a clear purpose. If you have a clear purpose, this guy will be your stepping stone. So as we round off right now, still talking about real estate generally. Now this is a sector where you've been there for over 10 years. And you know all of the issues, all of the challenges, the prospect, even threats. How can government come in maybe in terms of policies or regulations to ensure that the real estate market is stabilized and there's a bit of sanity in it? So I think the first thing is, which I think they are doing, but probably maybe they need to do more. Maybe they need to do more. It's having a regulatory body that will really do the job, not just there to exploit people. People that will really do the job. An association that will do the job, that will help to enlighten people, that will help to reduce the risk. That's number one. Governments also need to put more money in real estate because I think as of February this year, real estate contributed 4.9% to the GDP of the nation. And we know that this time around we're talking about diversifying because that's a way to go now. So if you're diversifying into buying local product and stuff, real estate is also what happens within. So if government can put more money into it, we would have enough time like for us because we can't do beyond 12 months payment plan. But if government can come in and assist financially, we could bring in more pages for like 10 years, for like 20 years and stuff. Thank you so much, Oladeji. There's always never enough time when you are talking about some salient teachers because time is never your friend. But I'm sure we'd have to bring you back on the show to talk more about the real estate problem. All right, my guest has been Oladeji at DOE. He is a seasoned professional in the real estate firm. And of course, he is a visionary founder of fine breaks and properties and investment limited. And he joined me to talk about the challenges for startups in real estate in Nigeria.