On Friday 28 March 2014, Lamudi, founded by Africa Internet Holding (AIH) and Nigeria’s online real estate platform surpassed 10,000 listings. The platform now provides Nigerians with a wider selection of properties in popular urban areas including: Abuja, Lagos and Ibadan.
Since starting its operations in 2013, Lamudi Nigeria has provided a platform to further drive development in the real estate sector and just as importantly support the growth in online activity.
Managing Director of Lamudi Nigeria, Obi Ejimofo stated: “The Nigerian real estate sector represents a huge market opportunity for us. Our population currently exceeds 160 million people, around 50% of which are currently living in urbanised areas. The urban population is growing at over 0.6% a year, which represents over 1 million people moving into the cities each year and this is where Lamudi fits in, especially given our young demographic with an increasingly online presence. We are constantly striving to provide people with a transparency they can trust, on a platform scaled to meet their needs and demands.”
Nigeria is representative of the wider story in the Sub Saharan Africa. Research from the Sub-Saharan Consulting Group (SSCG) (2013) indicates that the African real estate market is extremely well positioned, encouraging significant investment in its growth opportunities. With urbanisation on the rise, alongside rising income levels and the growing middle class, African governments have renewed their focus on delivering affordable housing across many African countries. The region is also witnessing a rise in entrepreneurship and is growing as an attractive outsourcing destination for manufacturing activities, thereby making the prospects for industrial and commercial real estate increasingly promising.
CEO, Allie Morse commented: “Since Lamudi launched its operations last year, we are constantly striving towards the growth of the housing sector in Nigeria and also providing the African community with a good platform to help locate or sell properties. With real estate analysis and figures showing positive growth this is really our time to shine in the real estate market and provide Africa with a transparent and simplistic platform to continue contributing towards the ever growing market.
Obi concluded: “Here at Lamudi at this point in our growth, we are simply enabling price discovery between buyers and sellers. We hit 10,000 listings this week, having only launched 9 months ago; we are only just getting started.”
