₦airaland Forum

zenatta:
My property was right in town so heard of the shenanigans of my beloved tenants, most very unsavoury. Your prop. would most def. be famous, mostly infamous.

Will you be providing meals for them
and shuttles to school, not free of course, then you'd have slaves for ever. Students never forget a good turn.

Plenty food for thought there. I think meals and transportation are best outsourced let someone with the expertise provide the service. For the meals I may just rent out a kitchen space and dinning to a caterer who provides the meals and charges the students directly.
Am curious to know (if you don’t mind) why you sold off your hostel.

Interested?.

Can you tell us what the hour reading on the meter is?

zenatta:
This is a nightmare. I am aghast that rent is manipulated to amounts exceeding a hundred thousand p.a for school kids, university level not withstanding. Shame on a system that allows this
I owned a property near Unilag before I sold in 07, occasionally I had the one or two odd tenants, children really who needed to be near school. It was referal and parents/guardian would be in tow, coming for the first time to view.
Prices above are outrageous so @ Reflector, note. Besides you'd always make your money
I have to go back to sleep now, using a phone. Would definitely get back to thread
@Solozzo, be ready for student's riotous lifestyle and late, very late rent payments.
@naijacutee, loft bedspace a wonderful idea, but who are your builders, because students will be students. I stayed way off the suspended bed because it was a rental

Unless you are a philantrophist, student hostel is an investment for which you need to recoup your capital and make profit even while maintaining the place. you would definitely make money from it but it is a long term investment. For anyone going into it just prepare your mind that it is an investment that you would appreciate more after you retire and need a steady income to augment your pension.

Personally I think it is a good investment the challenge is getting a good land within walking distance from the school, ensuring that it is built to withstand rough handling. provid basic furnishing so students move in with just their books and bags and be prepared for students who would squat their friends.

Solozzo:
Enough of the profitability. How about the risks, challenges and the cons?

Cult membrs may stay in your property and a frat fight might break out resulting in extensive damage or worse the building being burnt down.

ibomism:
Yes, i have a proper with a building in a very attractive place a Shelter Afrique, Uyo. Open for inspection anytime.

thanks what i really need is virgin land not one with a building on it. it doesn't have to be right inside the original shelter afrique but could be in the new extensions around it.

maninmood:
I spent close to 35mil including the land purchase. 16 rooms, a storey building. 8 rooms on each floor. I would have loved post a picture of it, but for security reasons,sorry,no.

Thanks it seems student hostel has about the same return on investment as flats for rent, however the overhead is more as you need to have a caretaker on site to manage the property as students can be rough and carefree.

naijacutee:
I think this topic should be stickied. In this case, I would say location is king. You are on to a winner if the said student hostels are located in the "right" area, close to a high-traffic university, public amenties and not lost in the bush somewhere, and contain all the facilities students need/want.

I'm assuming here that the rent turnover time is shorter (as opposed to bi-annual cycle landlords charge for flats). In this case, I think the landlord can use the smaller living area per occupant to his/her advantage i.e I think living space for a 3 bed flat can easily be comfortable living space for 3 x students = 3 lots of rent.

Maybe we need real life figures to determine.

P.S I think this should be stickied 

Thanks you have given me some nice ideas there, although I don't trust our workmen to do a proper bed suspension with wood or even iron, one can however do a concrete deck for the bed area and this would enable one reduce the overall size of a room from a standard 12feet x 12 feet to say 10 feet x 10 feet and achieve more seating area.

A standard room from floor to ceiling is about 10feet high so if one suspends the bed platform at 7 feet above the ground making it 4.5feet wide and 10 feet long you can fit a wardrobe under and a reading table while leaving the undecked area for relaxation and watching TV etc.

maninmood:
I have a hostel in Osun State and I charge 165k per year, not dt costly cuz it has everything you can think of apart from standard gen and bed, tv; others are available including split ac, fridge, security,beautiful building & secure environment. Location: Oshogbo. A plot goes for 4mil there.

This is great. If I may ask what is the layout of your hostel (i.e how many floors and rooms per floor) also if you don't mind how much did it cost you to build it and furnish. Thanks

The demand for student hostel is quite high moreso as universities are admitting more students every year. This is a business that would take a lot time before it reaches saturation point. The challenge however is that vacant land is practically not available around the old established universities such as Unilag, UI etc but for the newly created universities which are established in remote towns/villages cheap land is in abundance, demand would be high but rent would be much lower.

Does anyone know how much off campus students hostel are rented out for in Uyo?

jay bee:
I hope you know property values crashes once people have increase ease of getting from A to B.
Demand is the only thing driving prices in lagos and once transportation problems eases ,

I think you just nailed it there. most people looking for houses and living in Lekki work in VI or Lagos Island. proximity and speed of getting to the office attracts them to that axis. with good and efficient transportation a lot would relocate to the mainland and pay a fraction of lekki's rent.

This things no cheap O!. They are about the same rate as hotel some are even more epensive. Usually such accommodation in london is about half of what you pay to stay in a hotel.

It seems a student hostel must come with some minimum level of furnishing eg. a bed with mattress, reading table and chair as well as a two seater chair for visitors. I also feel it is important to provide electricity throughout the night (from 7pm to 6am) in case they need to study/read at night but the challenge here is fueling the diesel gens. I don't think students can afford to pay monthly service charge and building it into the rent would make it too expensive for most students.

Internet isn't a luxury but a basic necessity for students to do their research with.

Do you have any land around Shelter Afrique in Uyo?

Thanks for all your contributions please keep them coming so others can learn from your views and experience but do remember to respect each others views (No insults please).

I have also started another topic on something I am seriously thinking about and need your views on. click the link below to make your contributions there as well. Thanks

Building A Student Hostel : Profitability And Challenges https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-692451.0.html

Thanks for all your contributions please keep them coming so others can learn from your views and experience but do remember to respect each others views (No insults please).

I have also started another topic on something I am seriously thinking about and need your views on. click the link below to make your contributions there as well. Thanks

Building A Student Hostel : Profitability And Challenges https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-692451.0.html

Indeed location is key. It needs to be near enough to the campus for it to be viable. Do you have any idea of how much such hostels are rented out for per sessions or are the rates yearly?

People say it is more profitable than building flats to let? What do you think?

In addition if you are a student in any of the universities in Nigeria (or have the information) kindly state how much off campus accommodation is rented for per session in the private hostels around your school, don't forget to also give the name of the university. Thanks

madoba:
Learning quite a lot from this thread. Just want to know what would be a better option here in Lagos if you've got the money, is it

a. buying a house to probably refurbish it or
b. building one from scratch.

Option A, appeals to me because all the hassle of dealing with dishonest rogues in option B can be done away with but would like to hear from guys.

Personally I feel most of the houses offered for sale are over priced. For instance I was recently offered a 2 bedroom bungalow on 1 plot of land for 27million. I know the land cannot be worth more than 6million which implies the house is being valued at 21million. If I buy it I would probably have to knock it down, being a bungalow it doesn't have any pillars to support a duplex, I would need to crack the foundation to install the pillars, renovating it would involve changing windows de-roofing and putting new roof etc, at the end of the day I would probably spend about 15m on it. Total spend would be around 42 million

Is it worth it nope. On the other hand if I buy a virgin land elsewhere in an upcoming area I would probably get it for 3 million and then spend 20million building what I want from the scratch, at the end of the day total spend would be 23 million or there about, much less than what was spent buying the other property in the first case.

Most often people who buy houses and later renovate, buy because of the location. For a company that needs to establish its presence in a commercially viable and visible location it makes perfect business sense, but for individuals unless you have plenty money it is often more expensive to go that route.

ekt_bear:
Funny, article in Slate came out recently arguing in favor of renting over home ownership:

http://www.slate.com/id/2295851/

In the past I had the idea that owning a home is always better.

Thanks for that article it actually supports some of the points I have been raising here.

Mind you I currently live in my own home which I built some years ago. if given the opportunity again I would still build my own home, my reason for building was not to save on rent as the money I spent on building it would have paid my rent for 100years. I don't also see it as a financial investment as I don't intend to take a loan on it or sell it and yes it cost me money to maintain and run it (I just repainted the entire place). For me it is a necessary liability I am very comfortable with.

2dmax:
What about those country homes in the villages wasting? What are the rationale for building them, and can they be put into proper money making use?

country homes are a pure waste of money and are built for sentimental reasons to massage egos and tell oue peers that we have arrived. these homes are very diffisult to rent especially those in the villages and most times the owners don't spend more that 2 to 4 weeks in an entire year there. the homes just gather dust while some are burgled.

my advice to friends building in the village is to do a small bungalow.

1forall:
No brainer

ok can you share your analysis with us?

LOLOH:
IS IT WISE? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

have you done the financial analysis or basing your response on emotional needs?

RuuDie:
Big question ~ when you own a house aren't you supposed to being some kinda periodical taxes or rates? I've never heard any mention of those in naija!

In actual fact you are supposed to pay ground rent to government every year, unfortunately government is not very good at collecting this tax, they prefer to go chasing companies for employee tax and company tax.

anyway my suggestion was a 10% loan is good, but is it at fixed rate or reducing balance? Also if you take it for the 20year period you would be paying for it 3 times over. Do your calculation if after deducting the amount you need to survive every month you still have enough left over to pay the loan then go ahead.

I posted a response to your request earlier this morning and shortly after I got the message "You have been auto-banned by the antispam bot", this is becoming very irritating I might just bust this site jare.

Roland17:
its a very good investment, especially if the house is properly maintained, but then in Lagos, land policies and reform change occur frequently.

I learnt Lagos state government is about passing a law to regulate how months rent a landlord can collect in advance as well as pegging the rents? does anyone know more about this?

some still available.