How To Start And Run A Successful Real Estate Business In Nigeria

Real estate business is one of the top 5 most lucrative business in Nigeria today. Some people believe that the risk in the business outweighs the profit. That is not true. Real estate (land) is a property that doesn't depreciate in value. It only gets better with time. The most important thing in this business is having the necessary papers and certificate of any property your own.


There are several categories of real estate business and they include: real estate agent/broker, real estate/property developer, land flipping, property rent/lease, etc.
You can go into this business on a small or big scale. Also, if you want to start on a small scale, you can actually do so with little or no capital.


Below are details tips on how to start and run a successful real estate business in Nigeria and other countries.



Write a business plan

Every business start-up requires a business plan. Writing a business plan is critical to every business for several reasons which include, giving your business a sense of direction, ability to attract loan and partnerships. If possible, get professional in the field to prepare your business plan and the executive summary.



Carry out feasibility study on the modus operandi of the business in your area

Find out the big players in the business in your area. How do they serve their clients? What laws guide operations in the city/state where you want to operate? Carry out a market research and determine constraints of the business, your prospective clients, their challenges, etc. These questions have to be considered and answered for you to have a clear vision of your direction. Every feasibility study ends with report. Put your feasibility study on a report for future references.


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Register your business and join relevant bodies

Business registration is important in Nigeria. You must register with CAC – Corporate Affairs Commission and get a certificate to operate as a business. There are also associations and agencies that regulate real estate operations in Nigeria. You can also belong to estate developers association like the Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria.



Source for capital/partnership

Real estate is capital intensive, depending on the scale you want to operate the business. If you want to operate the business on a large scale, you will need much capital. You must have saved up some amount yourself but, if you're not a multi millionaire, you will still need to source for capital.

If you do not have enough it is important that you seek investors. You can look for equity investors  that can give you enough leverage at the start and accelerate growth.
You can also seek loan but, only seek for loan if you are sure of the property. Get the Certificate of Occupancy, get approval from government surveyor/agency and be sure there is no government project or road that will turn your business into a nightmare.


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Buy your property

The properties here include land and buildings. Look for a land that is still in a developing area and not far away from a major road. Some of the things to consider before buying any property include but not limited to: cost of the property,  availability of Certificate of Occupancy, local government/development permits, proximity to a major project/establishment/town, security, topography of the area (flooding and any other form of natural/man-made disasters), electricity, etc.



Create a marketing plan

The most important aspect of today's contemporary marketing lies on referral. Create an effective referral program and, hire experience and zealous marketers. You need to engage online and offline means to promote your business.

Use social media ads platforms to reach more prospect. Also, create a program that will make your property affordable to middle class and if possible, installment payment will help you get more prospects.

You should announce to the real estate demand market that you are in business and here to stay. Announce your arrival in the real estate market with the use of handbills, newspapers, real estate journals, radio, television and as much as your budget can permit to advertise.


Train yourself on how to think strategically about what’s happening in your market and be ready to offer something of value to your clients, no matter where they come from.



Create a website

Website is like the backbone of marketing and can serve as office to offer your services to your prospects. Even when you're sleeping, your website is still there working for you.
No matter how much local marketing you do, you need a web presence to attract and engage online traffic towards your business.

Getting a good website is not a capital investment. It's cheap considering the benefits that comes with it. A good website and  SEO on the website help to usher those traffic and prospective clients right to you, is a crucial foundation of every successful real estate business.

The website should be  functional and interactive, enabling prospective clients to make enquiries, see photos and videos of available options of property when you begin to have them or likely ones that would come up later.


We can help you develop a good and affordable website with free domain name and SSL security certificate. Click Here to get started.


How you can start Real Estate business in Nigeria with little capital


Partnerships
Partnership with other players in the field or people who are interested in the business is one sure way of starting the business with little investment. Especially if you know how the real estate works and you can effectively manage it, you can partner with someone that has the money and is able to dish out the capital for the business.

Such investors are hard to come by but, you have to try and arm yourself with a killer business plan.


Cloud Funding
You can call for individuals contributions in starting the business. Prepare your business plan and your pitch note. Convince individuals to contribute in funding the business and work out effective profit sharing formula according to the amount contributed by each individual. I had seen such work on other businesses and real estate is not an exception. No matter the amount each person is contributing, it all count.


Create a website where people who are interested can create account and contribute through online channel. They should also be able to view their profit and progress of the business through their individual dashboard. Sincerity is the key here.


Offering a  Service or Skill 
I had seen surveyors, lawyers and tractor owner own landed properties by providing their professionally services without paying any money.  If you offer any service and your client owns many plots of lands, you could negotiate to be paid with a land property and should the service offered not up to the property worth, you could offer to pay the balance overtime.


Mortgage
One can start real estate business using the mortgage strategy. In this method, a small percentage of the total sum is paid and the rest spread overtime while the property is handed over to you. Most times, a mortgage  bank is involved. If the borrower stops paying the mortgage, the bank can foreclose.


In conclusion, real estate business offers great opportunity and it's a business that only gets better with time. You can join with or without capital.

How To Write A Good Market Research Report And Great Executive Summary

After successfully conducting a field market research, the job will not be considered as completed with a report with executive summary.


When writing an Executive Summary, think about the purpose of an executive summary. You need to provide a one page, or at most two page, summary of the results of your marketing research. Be sure to hit all of the major points of the rest of your report in this summary. Many people will read the summary first, to get a quick overview of your results.


The summary should include specific, numeric details from the rest of your report. These details should be condensed into bullet points and made prominent on the report.



Features of the Executive Summary


Describe your company: The summary should provide a basic account of what your company does, where it is located, what type of employees (if any) you have, and any other organizational details. Also describe your products and goals for your future products or sales.



Detail the objective of your research: Your report should specify what exactly you were trying to determine in your marketing research. This could be whether or not your marketing was effective in content, whether or not it reached the right audience, whether or not it properly informed customers about your product, or any other determination you wished to make.



Related post: How to carry out market research



Evaluate how well you are reaching your intended audience: Typically, the objective of your market research is to assess how well you are convincing people in your target audience to buy your product. You need to be making sure that you're reaching an audience that will actually be purchasing your product. If you're not doing so, explain why you think this is the case and offer suggestions for different courses of action.



Display marketing conversion data: This figure represents how many potential customers or visitors to your website actually purchased a product. This can be evaluated with site traffic counters. If this number is particularly low, you should offer explanations as to why this might be the case and how you can improve on it.



Admit any data collection difficulties or incomplete sections: Your executive summary should also include a section where you explain whether or not you had any difficulty attaining the data within. This could help explain incomplete or omitted sections or topics. Sometimes, there's no way to obtain a certain set of data reliably. If this is the case, explain why it is so in your summary.



Explain any factors that you think might come into play: This can include more people coming online, more traffic coming to links to your website, or any other trends that you think might help or hurt your marketing techniques.
You should also consider the fact that other competitors will arise if you are successful. Significant returns attract more competition, so if you don't have direct competitors now, rest assured that you will in the future. Have a plan in place to sustain your competitive advantage in spite of new entrants to the market.



Calculate marketing return on investment: It's also important to know if the money you're spending on advertising is increasing your revenue enough to make it worth it. Simply total your expenditures on certain marketing campaigns and compare that to how much your sales have (or have not) increased in the time since beginning those campaigns. Keep in mind that there may be a significant delay between implementing your marketing campaign and the resulting bump in sales. Consider the value you are getting for spending your money on advertising.



Conduct surveys and compile the results: You can conduct surveys on your website or by using a email marketing campaign. You can also get information from focus groups. Your focus group should include people in your target audience.

To get the most out of your focus group, carefully plan the exact series of questions you want to ask. Your marketing report should include the questions you ask and why those questions are important to you.
In your survey or focus group, ask people how they first heard about your product.


Document the results of both your surveys and your focus groups. Your report should provide both questions and responses. Give the reader the percentage of each type of response.

Your qualitative research (survey and focus group questions) may be 5 to 10 pages of your report. The responses to those questions will also be 5 to 10 pages of material.



Use your marketing report to make changes in your business: The purpose of your market research is to find out what is working and where you need to improve. If you can make the right changes, you can market more effectively without increasing your marketing budget.

Evaluate the extent to which your customers view your product as different and better than the competition. If they don’t see a difference, dig into their responses and find out why.


Decide on some conclusions: You conclude, for example, that your website needs to emphasize that your product is much more durable/reliable/nutritive/better than the competition.

You decide to make changes to your website and your other marketing communication pieces.

After a period of time, you can assess these changes to see how they have impacted your market share. Perform more market research to evaluate the impact of your changes.

How To Carry Out Marketing Research For Your Business

Market research is the process of evaluating how well your marketing efforts are working.
You can perform market research to ask your clients about the effectiveness of your marketing message. Companies summarize the results of their research in a marketing report. Use the results of the report to make improvements in your business.



Consider why you should perform market research and write a report

What information is important to you? What will you do with the marketing report after it is created? This process requires an investment of time and expense. Make sure that you have a clear plan for using the information that you collect.


Specifically, does your marketing get the attention and interest of prospects? Are you converting enough of those prospects into clients?


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Identify your customer

Before you can identify your customer's need or problem, you must identify your target or typical customer. Your target audience is the specific customer profile your are trying to reach. This could be people of a certain gender, age, profession, interest set, group, or any other quality that you think makes a customer want to buy your product. In other words, these are the people who are most likely to buy your product and the people that you tailor your marketing to.


The more specific you can be about the identity of your customer, the better you can address their needs. Ask yourself, "Who am I targeting with this product?" and "What do they want?"
Look at your current customers. What's the average age? Gender? Education level? Personality? Lifestyle? Hobby? Occupation? Marriage status? Values?



Evaluate your customer’s problem

Consumers buy products to solve a specific problem. Your customers will only buy when they feel that solving the problem is urgent.

For example, based on customer surveys and your industry knowledge, you uncover a customer problem. In this case, customers are losing time working or studying when their cell phone dies. If they forget their charger, they may lose hours of productivity.



Detail your solution to the customer's problem

Think about how exactly you went about responding to the customer's problem. Why did you solve it that way? What make you think about the problem in this way? What exactly does your product or solution do or include?


For example, to solve the problem of dying cell phones, you create a phone charger built into a backpack. Your customers use backpacks to store computers and other work or school items. As a result, the worker or student can always charge their phone.



Determine how well your product solves your customer's problem

Figure out whether or not your product has reduced the impact of the problem you saw. This is also a good place to determine whether or not your problem needed solving in the first place. If sales are consistently low, this may be a sign that your solution was unnecessary.


Over time, more customers buy your backpack and like using the built-in phone charger. These clients also believe that your product is different and better than competing products. You are building brand equity with your customers.



Identify your competitive advantage

Examine your competitors' products and how the solutions that they provide differ from your solution. In other words, look at what your product is able to provide to customers that your competitors' products cannot.


What makes your product unique and better? The goal here is to identify a competitive advantage and focus on that advantage with marketing efforts. If this advantage can be sustained, it will lead to higher sales and greater customer retention.



Examine how you currently market your product

The idea of market research is to understand how you market now and how well clients respond. Analyze the steps you currently take to market your product. For example, if you market your product online, you may be using some of the following strategies:


You continually add blog posts, articles and other content to your website. Adding content drives traffic to your site. Your content also keeps a percentage of your audience coming back for new content.Y

Yoursite offers an opt-in button for readers to subscribe to additional content that is emailed to them. This group gets a weekly email from you with new content links.

You have an attractive home page that includes a picture of someone using your backpack phone charger. The site allows the user to easily navigate to your content page and to web pages with product information.

You provide an e-commerce option for customers. Clients can buy your product online and receive their backpack in just 2-3 business days.

This should also include information about the sales channels used, like online, bricks & mortar, types of retailers, etc. Analyze how well your product is doing in each of these channels.



Evaluate the effectiveness of your marketing

 Is marketing doing a good job of getting your product information to potential customers? If you are using blog posts or articles, are they actually being read? Determine if your marketing efforts are actually leading to traffic to your website and then if this traffic is converting into sales. If not, you may want to include ideas for a revised marketing strategy in your marketing report.


Note your market share compared to competitors and market share trends. Are you gaining market share, losing it, or holding your own?


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Summarize your findings for your marketing report

The results of your market research should be compiled and detailed in a market report. A market report includes a 1-2 page executive summary and a longer detailed report section.


Your report should include such items as definition of the market size, competitors and their marketing size, as well as estimates of market share.


You can use the market report to make changes to your marketing process. These changes can help you get more business from the time and money you spend on marketing.


Next Read: How to write/present market research report and executive summary

How To Make Money Blogging By Treating Your Blog Like A Business

When I started blogging almost seven years ago, there where no much money in it. Now that the general population knows they can earn income blogging, they all want in. The problem is they don’t treat a blog like a business.



If you’re also a blogger (or you wish to start blogging) who is wondering how to start turning your hobby into a business, here are a few places you can start.


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Decide how you’re going to make money

The first step in treating your blog like a business is figuring out how you actually make money. There are two (kind of three) options here.

• You already have a business (or are building a business) and a blog is a marketing tool.
• The blog itself gets you hired for specific services pertaining to content creation.

In the former example, you have a company and your blog is just one part of your sales and marketing funnel. For example, I have a student who is a travel agent and her travel blog helps her get clients.

In the second, the blog itself is what gets you paid. This usually looks like content marketing work, affiliate marketing and spokesperson work for major brands.


You can also have some sort of a hybrid and add multiple sources of income as time goes on, but in the beginning stages I recommend sticking to one or two things.



Figure out where your clients and customers pay you

The second step is to figure out your sales and marketing funnel. In other words, you need to determine how someone goes from being a blog reader to a paying customer or client. Here are a few examples:

Your following doesn’t actually pay you, but corporate brands hire you as a spokesperson because of your following.

• Blog readers purchase affiliate products from your website.
• Potential clients go to your site for advice, join your email list and you market your products and services to them.

Each scenario has a slightly different roadmap depending on how you’re actually making your money. When treating your blog like a business, it’s important to know what this process is so you can structure your business accordingly.



Create a marketing budget

There was a time when you could use social media and everyone would see your content for free. Sadly, those days are behind us. You need to look no further than the recent Facebook changes to see how this has changed over the years.

That being said, businesses have marketing budgets and as such your blog should as well. This may look like ads or services that help drive traffic or build your social media presence. Fortunately, these things don’t have to cost you a whole lot, but you do need to invest just like you would in any other business.


Conclusion

In order to treat your blog like a business, you need to deal with numbers, logistics, and marketing. While this isn’t the fun part, it is what actually gets you paid.


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