Advert Hotlines:+234-8023882330, 08165371627

Thursday, 9 January 2014

THE 6TH FLOOR: THE PRICE TAG (1)





                                                        Source: Sunonline
  By Olumide T. Agunbiade
           
IT happens a lot these days in Nigeria. Homeowner falls on hard times and has to move from his home, selling or renting it out to make ends meet. But, if that house happens to sit on a few acres in Ikoyi area of Lagos, there may be one difference. The rent is N2.5million. A month.
That was what chief Korede, a politician and socialite--his close friends includes Senators and Ministers—was asking for his Bourdillon Palace, as it was called. In the year since he moved, he already had two tenants. One a Russian oil tycoon and the other an Italian interior decorator. They were the sort for who price hardly matters. What they want instead are security, the location and the experience.

I remember this particular encounter as if it happened yesterday even though it happened two years ago. I was in my office preparing a letter of offer for a property at Yaba area of Lagos, when my phone rang.
The caller was Jibola Akinyemi, an estate surveyor based in Ibadan but happens to manage properties in prime locations in Nigeria. He was in Lagos and wanted me to accompany him to inspect a property at Ikoyi that he had been instructed to rent out by owner.
Few hours later, I sat beside him in his Jeep on our way to Ikoyi. We soon joined the traffic at Obalende. “The landlord is asking for N2.5 million a month,” began Jibola.
     “That’s quite expensive!” I replied.
     “I told him but he said I should go and inspect the place. Besides, the former tenants paid that much.”
     “Really? Then I can’t wait to see the place,” I replied.
While moving at snail pace due to the traffic, we soon approached Akin Adesola and finally navigated our way from the Falomo roundabout to Bourdillon and finally arrived at the place we came to inspect.
From the pavement, you’d never guess what lies behind the imposing doors of Bourdillon palace. But inside lurks a former palace, complete with a rooftop terrace affording magical views of both Ikoyi and Victoria Island.
There are only 8 bedrooms, all with high-gloss white walls and cooling accents of mint green, a disco room, saunas, cinema, gym room, swimming pool, bullet proof windows and so forth. The style, if that is the word, is somewhere between kitsch and sublimity, with Greco-Roman columns here, Babylonian motifs there; some Versailles and Neuschwanstein and so forth. It was the kind of structure that would simply blow your mind away. 
Jibola and I were shocked at the sight that befell us as we moved from one place to other inspecting the rooms and the facilities that words cannot describe anymore. “What do you think?” asked Jibola.
    “I think I’ll take it,” I replied, smiling at him.
“We both know you can’t afford it,” said Jibola.We both laughed as our voice echoed through the mansion. “If I get a good offer, I can persuade the owner to reduce the price,” he said. We soon left the mansion, locked the gates, got into the car and drove away from Bourdillon palace.
Two weeks later, the owner turned down a movie producer’s request to lease the mansion for a fee, N1.8million offer from a petrol chemical engineer, N2 million offers from an oil tycoon and N2.2million a month offer from a politician.
A month later, the situation did not change. The offers kept pouring in from different firms and the homeowner kept turning down the offers. Jibola was disappointed with the situation and many estate firms had lost interest in marketing the property due to the continuous rejection of the offers of their interested clients.
According to Jibola, nobody had managed to offer the asking price. Besides, the former occupants of the property never renewed their rent after a year. At the time of this incident, luxury flats in Ikoyi is between $40,000--$55,000 and even a mansion of similar style is not worth the owners’ asking price of N30 million per annum.
Two months later, Jibola said the owner was ready to listen to offers on one condition. The condition was that Jibola must invite an agent from Lagos who must convince him that his property did not worth the asking price and of all agents, he choose me!
I turned down the invitation but Jibola insisted that I should come. Besides, he agreed to send a driver to pick me up from Lagos. The night before the trip, I could not sleep. My mind was filled with different thoughts concerning the journey.
What kind of person is the homeowner? Why did Jibola Akinyemi choose me? Is my decision to embark on the journey a right one? That night, I prayed very well before sleeping.

                                                               To be continued!

No comments:

Post a Comment