1. Not to count my chickens before they are hatched. I learnt this the hard way when I was getting to an agent\u2019s office two weeks ago to pay for a two bedroom apartment, only to find someone else had beaten me to it. I was this close to calling all my friends over for the washing and was already trying to figure out how much Star to get (not Heineken, not in my house). And then, in a split second, I was houseless again.
\n2. Looking for a house in Lagos is a full time job. I found out one needs to treat it as such, or find someone else to do so. If you cannot drop everything and leave your baby whom you are still breastfeeding, your business that comes to a standstill without you present or your scary boss the moment the agent calls you to say he\u2019s heard of a vacancy, do not bother to look for a place at all. Demand is high and the best places are off the market in he blink of an eye. See lesson number 1.<\/p>\n
3. To treat the title of \u2018real estate agent\u2019 lightly. Everyone can be an agent. The moment somebody hears of a 3 bedroom around the corner, he has become an agent. There is no license involved nor are there any professional ethics required. Al it takes is having the contacts to said landlord and then guarding it with your life. Never give your client phone numbers or the exact address of a place that is for rent. He might dupe you and go directly to the source. This is a market of middle men in a networking society: a man\u2019s contacts are his capital.<\/p>\n
4. To decipher agent\u2019s lingo. \u2018Some work needed\u2019 means the place has been destroyed by the last lodger and looks like a war zone. \u2018Cosy\u2019 means claustrophobically small. \u2018Under construction, ready in a fortnight (always a fortnight)\u2019 signifies that the foundation has just been put in place and it would take an army of Chinese workmen to finish it in that time frame. Prepare to wait at least a month before you can move in. \u2018To be finished to your own taste\u2019: the land lord has left you with a cement floor without tiling, a kitchen without cabinets and a bathroom without sink. \u2018Airy\u2019 \u2013 ruin without roof. \u2018Serene\u2019 means expensive. Very expensive, as in Lekki or Banana Island. The kind of overrated locations agents want to ship oyinbos like myself to.<\/p>\n
5. To forget about knowledge. In the case of househunting in Lagos, time is power. Quick decisions are rarely the right ones. When you are not in a hurry and can afford to delay your decision, you get better results.<\/p>\n
6. Not to let any agent bully me into buying. They always emphasised there was another client interested in the place. In fact, many time they declared another client was ready to pay for it within the hour. I got used to hearing \u2018This apartment is in very high demand, you have to move pa, pa, pa (quick, quick, quick)\u2019 Sometimes it was true (see lesson number 1). Other times it was a selling strategy.<\/p>\n
7. I read the Lagos State Tenancy Law. I should not have bothered. It is simply not working.
\nMe: \u2018But it is illegal to ask for two year\u2019s rent!\u2019
\nAgent: \u2018Is this Fashola\u2019s house?\u2019<\/p>\n
In fact, I\u2019ve come to mistrust landlords who ask for only a year\u2019s rent. There is usually something very, very wrong with their property. The kind of thing you will only discover after you\u2019ve paid, spent your first night there and woke up to realise you cannot stay there for a single second longer. Do not go there.<\/p>\n
8. Me and my car Wima got used to a lot of company on our househunt. At one point I had my agent, the agent\u2019s contact, the contact\u2019s contact and the man with the key to the apartment in my vehicle. All four of them were giving me contradictory directions in the typical Lagosian manner (\u2018That way\u2019 \u2013 waving vaguely with index finger to nowhere in particular). I tried to be Buddhist about it. It did not always work. Sorry again Mr Tony that I yelled at you when you almost misguided me into that one way street from the wrong end.<\/p>\n
9. To get accustomed to waiting. For my agent, my agent\u2019s contact, his contact, the man with the key, the guard to let us in and the landlord. I learnt to spend it wisely. Walked around the block, talked to the residents. Asked about flooding and the light situation. Checked for security and night clubs. Night clubs within walking distance: good. Night clubs within hearing distance: bad. And of course I inquired after the best place for moinmoin and Star beer at pump prices. After this research I sometimes did not even have to see the apartment for rent anymore.<\/p>\n
10. To hoard up on phone credit. I made endless phone calls to get my agent, my agent\u2019s contact, his contact, the man with the key, the guard to let us in and the landlord at the same place at the same time before sundown. Also provided occasional credit for my agent, my agent\u2019s contact, his contact, the man with the key and the guard who let us in. I stopped adding up how much I had spent on phone calls half way through the house hunt. Too depressing.<\/p>\n
11. Not to count my chickens before they are hatched. So I will not tell you now about that cute and very affordable upstairs apartment in Surulere with lots of windows, views all round and a guest room for when my mum comes to visit. I know better than that. I will let you know when I have the door keys in my hand and my stuff is in the little doll house. I have learnt my lessons.<\/p>\n
Femke on Twitter: @femkevanzeijl<\/a> 1. Not to count my chickens before they are hatched. I learnt this the hard way when I was getting to an agent\u2019s office two weeks ago to pay for a two bedroom apartment, only to find someone else had beaten me to it. I was this close to calling all my friends over for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":509,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[98,99,135,138,139,141,143,144,145,146,233,234,255,302,303,313,314,315,376],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-chinese-workmen","tag-chinese-workmen-nigeria","tag-fashola-house","tag-femke-funke","tag-femke-in-lagos","tag-femke-van-zeijl","tag-femke-van-zeijl-africa","tag-femke-van-zeijl-afrika","tag-femke-van-zeijl-lagos","tag-femke-van-zeijl-nigeria","tag-lagos-househunt","tag-lagos-landlords","tag-living-in-lagos","tag-night-clubs-lagos","tag-night-clubs-nigeria","tag-oyinbo","tag-oyinbo-in-naija","tag-oyinbo-in-nigeria","tag-surulere-lagos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africawebtv.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africawebtv.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africawebtv.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africawebtv.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africawebtv.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/africawebtv.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africawebtv.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africawebtv.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africawebtv.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africawebtv.nl\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nFemke online: www.femkevanzeijl.nl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"