With the rapidly changing scenarios in the housing industry, mounting unemployment and home shortages in the country, property owners and realtors are tests running a new marketing strategy that offers prospective investors a piece of land in Lagos and Ogun states through a swap programme. 

The scheme, which is new, may not be professional as expected, but it guarantees those involved in the transactions a plot of land or more for an exchange with a car. The landowners get a car equivalent of land value.

Although the programme is gaining prominence in the Lekki-Epe corridor, precisely Epe communities, it has now extended to Ogun and Edo states. Those promoting the car for land deal believe that it provides a quick way to dispose of land properties, promote land ownership and ensure housing delivery.

That cars worth several millions of naira had already been exchanged for land in communities within Ibeju-Lekki. The axis popularly referred to as the ‘New Lagos,’ is home to the Lekki Free Trade Zone and other massive infrastructural projects and tourist attractions, such as Dangote Refinery, international airport, Eko tourist centre, Hermitage Resort centre and Lakowe Lakes Golf Resort.

Some of the prominent communities in Ibeju-Lekki include: Abijo, Awoyaya, Lakowe, Bogije, Sapati, Igando-Oloja, Arapagi, oke-odo Elemoro, Akodo, Magbon-Alade, Eleko, Debojo, Solu-Alade, Iwerekun and others.

Speaking on the development, a realtor with Alphavision Logistics Limited, Robert Idehen said several cars have been warehoused under the deals, which are either sold or given to interested sellers, mostly traditional rulers.

Explaining how the scheme works, Idehen said, many of the community leaders want cars but lacked the resources to buy them. “We help them get it and swap them with the land.”

According to him, “we always value the investor’s car before reaching a compromise. For example, if your car is valued at N2 million, we will give you land around the area that goes for N2 million or N2.5 million.

“But if you want a more valuable land, where the land is above N5 million and your car value is N2 million, you have to add N1 million to make it N3 million and, you can have the land at N3 million for a value of land worth N4 million.”

He disclosed that many prospective homeowners have benefited from the scheme, the last being, a lady who came in from Europe and gave a Mercedes car and got two plots of land around Monastery area in Sangotedo because the Mercedes was worth N8 million.

Another realtor, Reuben Adisa said the location and the value of the land had been the determining factor.

He said most of the land for swaps are in Ibeju Lekki and the land is totally dry and ready for development.

“We have land now and need cars as the chiefs in the communities want cars.

“To determine if the land is out of encumbrance, both the investor and broker will do the property search before the car is handed over to the buyer,” he added.

But the past chairman, Lagos State branch of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), Mr. Sola Fatoki, said professionals do not participate in the practice.

He confirmed that the scheme is gaining ground because of the economic downturns and the quest for people to get land but was often done as a promo by unregistered realtors.

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