Corporate Real Estate Development in Nigeria: issues and Challenges of Site Acquisition

Hitherto, acquisition of suitable site is the developer’s foremost focal obligation to a project but access to it remains a central challenge. Its process can be frustrating and unpredictable since many factors, often outside the developer’s control, can influence its success. Considering the importance of site acquisition in the corporate real estate development process and peculiarity of the developmental challenges posed by the land factor, this study exploits the data of the Lagos State real estate transactions and activities to ascertain and observe the distinctive acquisition problems and then evaluate the level of occurrence and impact of these identified issues and challenges on the corporate real estate development performance and rank in order of consequence. Adopting the self-administered questionnaire to sample the opinion of the selected Lagos-based corporate real estate development companies, 24 distinctive site acquisition problems are identified and further analysis reveals that lack of basic infrastructure to selected sites, high cost of acquisition, cumbersome government allocation and high cost of titling perfection are the top-ranked site acquisition problems. Nonetheless, this study suggests that the corporate real estate development establishments and the public sector should work hand in hand especially in the availability and access to suitable developable sites for real estate development and investment projects.