.....Emerges Real Estate Company Of The Year
••We're bringing Lekki to Kobape - Dr. Adeyemo
By Our Correspondent
A foremost real estate company in Nigeria, Pelican-Valley Nigeria Limited has won the Real Estate Company of the Year Award.
Pelican-Valley Nigeria Limited beats scores of other major players in the nation's real estate sector to clinch the position.
The award established ten years ago was put together by the Gateway Business Awards.
Presenting the award to the Chief Executive Officer of the Pelican Valley Estate, Dr. Babatunde Adeyemo in his office, the Chairman, Awards Committee, Adebowale Aderotoye, said the company was nominated and eventually picked by the audit committee for its various giant strides in the real estate sector.
He explained that the annual event was to recognise and honour individuals, government officials, community leaders and corporate organisations who have contributed to the socioeconomic development of Ogun state.
Aderotoye disclosed that the audit committee of the awards zeroed in on Pelican Valley among top real estate giants as a result of Adeyemo's sterling qualities and giant phenomenal industrial strides in his core area of enterprise.
He declared that the company has enhanced real estate business not only in Ogun, but in Nigeria.
He, however, said the award was presented to Adeyemo at the Pelican Valley office as a result of COVID-19 pandemic, which according to him, has put the usual awards night on hold for the second year running.
He listed Lafarge WAPCO, FCMB, ADRON Homes, Professor Olubunmi Badejo and Gbele Olugbebi, Permanent Secretary, Ogun State Ministry of Rural Development, as past corporate and individual winners of the prestigious awards.
Responding, CEO of Pelican Valley Nigeria Limited, Dr. Adeyemo, expressed excitement at the honour done him.
He described the award as victory for hard work, perseverance, selflessness, honesty and transparency, adding "this award will spur our company to strive and record more feats in the real sector in the country".
Read the excerpt from the interview below
How I feel about the Award
I feel so elated, it is a fruit of hardwork, it is a fruit for perseverance, it's dedicated to the entire real estate sector of Nigeria and the State in Particular and Nigeria in General, so I feel so happy for it.
Like I said earlier, the award is a victory for perseverance, victory for selflessness, for honesty and transparency. And all these virtues facilitated this award because from time immemorial, that is, from inception, Pelican Valley is known to be doing business with passion, without looking at the financial benefit that accrue to the business, while some do it only for monetary gains, so when I got into the real estate business, I realized that there are some things that as a gentleman, I might not be able to do.
So I prefer to craw to get to the top to running to the top fraudulently. So I am really taking my time to do all things diligently according to the rules before getting to this level and I really thank God, to God be the glory.
Real Estate business is a kind of a Cumulative Grade Point Average system, known as CGPA as applicable in the University. If you get it wrong from the beginning, it will be a liability till the end of your years in the University. So that's why most of the players in the industry are getting it wrong . If government say you should do your approved layout beforeselling lands , and you refused to do it, and start selling those lands , at the end of the day, government will ask you to do it by force, and the money to do it might not be available since sold the land already.
These are the things that Pelican Valley is trying to avoid from the beginning. We are doing what we are supposed to do with diligence. It is costing us a lot, ordinarily we can decide to buy exotic cars, and spend lavishly, but won't be able to move freely on the streets without Police escort, you know, what's the essence of contracting Omo Onile and use power of attorney to sell lands to people? these are the things that we are trying to avoid in Pelican Valley.
We buy the lands, pay Omoonile fully, go to government to do necessary documentations, we pay almost Five times to what we paid Omoonile to get all the title documents. So with that, it is capital intensive, because before you can get approved layout, you spend, we do topographic survey,beacon sheets, establishment of basic infrastructures and so many like that, all these are very expensive. We are really getting value for what we are doing, and Our Clients, they are the Kings, they are also getting value for their investment, and the way our lands appreciate is very high, you can get hundred percent of your investment within six months. If you buy a land at Pelican Brief now, within seven working days, you get your building approval based on the approved layout that we have done as a real estate company. It's a win win for us and our clients as well.
The Challenges
We have really had it tough in the past. During the last administration in the State. There was a time we had an administration in this state that acquired most of our lands. It was really tough for real estate developers. For almost Eight years then, because that government sees an average real estate entrepreneur as a competitor. It was really a tough time for us then, we are more or less stagnant, some people have died, some could not processed their documents, if some us that had CofO then, we were frustrated.
But we now give God all the glory that we now have a government headed by someone who is from a business background, he knows how an average real estate entrepreneur or business man feels. He invited us, call us to round table, through Honourable Commissioner for Urban and Physical Planning, he asked us about our problems, and the way out. We thank God that now we are getting a sort of relieve now.
Let me use this opportunity to thank His Excellency, Prince Dr Dapo Abiodun, for been lenient to average real estate investors in the State.
Mass Housing Scheme and Our 2022 Goals
Real estate business is not a jamboree. There's a limit to how you can subsidize real estate. If you want to get the best and avoid the case of building collapse and all sorts of hiccups and not use substandard. All what we use in building are not manufactured by us, or government. For example you can't subsidize iron, you buy at market price, even cement and others, the cost of labour can't be subsidized, the sand, the water, and all these are what we put together to build a house, you have to buy at market price and use a standard one. Even the government can only subsidize the land, they will need to buy cement, iron, labour and other things. So getting housing at a very cheap price may be extremely difficult, except government want to use money meant for other things like roads infrastructure and others and divert it to housing.
So to get housing at affordable price is not a child work or joke, it means you are not looking for profit. Government can not do it all alone because the resources are limited and considering the global economic crisis due to COVID and other challenges, so the onus still lies with government to encourage private sector so that we can close the gap of housing deficit in the country. But be it as it may, Pelican Valley Nigeria limited, we are trying to launch a product at Kobape come early next year, we are going to ignite the economy of Kobape axis, we have gotten over 500 foreign direct investment, they want to build, we have also created some portions as part of Pelican Brief for people that can afford it. It is going to be classic, we want to build homes like those we find in Lekki. You know Lekki is becoming somehow congested now, some of the Nigerians in diaspora wants to come home and invest, live in a relatively peaceful environment, they also want somewhere that is very relatively peaceful too like Ogun State ,band Abeokuta in particular, with all amenities put in place, we have that at Kobape, where they can take full advantage. We want to take a replica of Lekki, bring that to Kobape for people to buy. We are starting that by next year, we are working on full approval. I know it will be easy for us to get approval since we have building approved layout. By January we will launch the project with about 20 units, and it's going to be splendid because we have lots of incentives for our clients. One of such incentive is we want to do a promo launch, about ten percent any client that key into that project before we launch it. So Ten percent prelaunch give away.
We also want to make the payment for the houses to be in dollars. Because most of our clients are Nigerians in diaspora, we want to encourage them to comeback home and increase the level of direct investment. This will also curb inflation so that some dollars and pounds can come into this country, they are paying in dollars.
Another advantage is also the inflation in the country will not affect the price of the products they are buying. It will curb inflation and variation. For example when we start the building, the homes that's supposed to be built at say N5million now, that's what usually drag some real estate entrepreneurs into fraud, for instance, you want to build a house for somebody for N10million now, and you told the client to spread the money over 24 months, that's two years, before 24 months, inflation had made the cost of building that house to be tripled, how will you use your money to fund at a loss, it's either you reduce the materials, by using inferior materials or you abscond. That's why we want to raise our money in dollars by the time exchange rate increases, the payment plan automatically catches up. This is because we are men of our words.
Thirdly we want to make the payment plan to be interest free. Apart from being a Muslim, I detest interest. We don't want to inconvenience or add burden to any of our clients, if we say we want to assist anyone with accessible and affordable houses, we should not a lot of burden on them, though there will be penalties for defaulters called default charge. The payment plan will also be for six to twenty four months.
Before the end of next quarter of next year, we also want to launch another project to ignite the economy of Kobape, but I won't let the cat out of the bag yet.
Why We are into all these
I am a kind of that person that believes that there is no amount of money that you have in this life, that will guarantee the future of your children, if you stack this place with money, it doesn't guarantee the future of your children, so why are you keeping the money,all you need to do is just to invest in your children's education and do things that will stand the test of time that people can remember you for. I don't keep money in the bank, neither do I do frivolities, because what is in the life itself, apart from you riding a car, building house, and sending your children to school, I have done everything to the glory of God, so it now depends on the level you want to do it, but limit your lifestyle and live a simple and modest life, before you know it, you won't go into fraud,
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