By Moses Uwagbale
A real estate outfit, G-Text Homes, has unveiled plans to build 25,000 green and smart homes over the next 15 years to bridge Nigeria’s housing deficit.
Dr Steven Akintayo, the company’s Managing Director, on Monday in Lagos said that the 25,000 eco-friendly homes would be built in 200 estates across the country.
“When we decided to go into building houses, we said we cannot go the way others have gone.
“We have a vision of having 200 estates between now and 2035 and building 25,000 green and smart homes.
“The world is going green while everybody is talking about climate change and we want to make a statement in Nigeria.
“We are not just talking about building green homes, we have started smart homes,” Akintayo said.
He added that the green and smart homes would be highly energy efficient, eco-friendly, and a futuristic ideal home.
“It is an energy efficient home, eco-friendly, a home for the future and I do not see any better opportunity in terms of investment than this.
“We are currently the first 100 per cent virtual property purchase company in Nigeria as you can buy property from us online, without third party and your documents will be sent to you wherever you are in the world,”he said.
Akintayo urged real estate practitioners to imbibe the ethics of transparency, adequate information and relationship building to earn consumers’ trust to demystify all mysteries in real estate.
“One of the challenges of our industry is trust, like an average person you tell about property you’re selling today can not trust you.
“If you are going to go far, you need your foundation to be strong; so we spent the last five years educating people on what property is, what document is, and what the things you need to do are.
“We have spent the last five years in creating transparency, relationship and we also do something every month with the media involved and we are engaging people.
“More than 90 per cent of our customers have never seen any of our estates before; that’s the level of trust.
“A lot of our customers trust us because we are open and transparent,” he said.
Akintayo said that the company was committed to addressing the effect of climate change on environment.
According to him, the company had in 2019 kicked off a N10billion low cost housing project to assist low income earners owning their dream homes.
He added that GText homes was partnering with a New York based company on waste recycling for electricity generation to be used in the estates.
