For Olatubosun Fatoki, who left the shores of the country for Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirate in 2015 unsure of what future lies ahead, a decade after you can say he has made good in life. Widely acclaimed as a visionary entrepreneur and the first Nigerian to establish a real estate company in Abu Dhabi, UAE, Crest Range Properties LLC, Fatoki’s story resonates well with the survival struggles of many Nigerians abroad who are making the most of the opportunities at their disposal. In this interview with Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf, he shares interesting insights on his career trajectory thus far. Excerpts:
Going into real estate
I’ve been in real estate since 2016. But I started off with a baseline experience working with a property magazine in Nigeria where I had a short stint. So when I came to Dubai it was easy for me to choose real estate as a career path. This is because if you go to any commercial buildings here, especially in Abu Dhabi, you will see a list of companies that are in that building and almost all buildings have two, three, four to five real estate companies in them, which demonstrates the industry dominance. So I opted for real estate, knowing that I have a baseline experience back from Nigeria. But coupled with the experience, I’ve been a salesperson all my life and I felt oh; this is an industry for me. So I picked up from there, started off real estate as a salesperson, as an off-plan project sales professional with a real estate company in Dubai. I had to travel from Abu Dhabi to Dubai every day just to do real estate. I was just trying to learn the city, learn the environment, learn the industry, get to know how things work here, and how to go about it. So for the first two years, I worked in Dubai, going back and forth daily.
All I just wanted to do was to learn. I just wanted to keep learning, knowing the industry, bringing in my sales experience into the field. You know as Nigerians wherever we are, we just want to make the best of ourselves and take advantage of our environment. So I started to build my network, started to build my name, trying to do as much as possible, especially when it comes to client relations and service delivery. I tried to do something different from every normal agent practice here.
I started off being the only African agent in the first two companies I worked with. But I was learning, not minding whatever stipend I was getting from it, because I had an end goal, to know the market and develop myself.
Thankfully, I already started to build a huge database, a portfolio of clients and a network in the market, the industry, in the city. The fact is 80% of my transactions were coming from referrals because of people that I have worked with, who have been comfortable with their experience dealing with me. So a lot of references were coming in. I wouldn’t say I was doing exceptionally well, but I was doing okay.
In 2020, I joined one of the biggest real estate companies with a huge portfolio of properties that I could work with. But, you know, it’s like a company where you sit and get a lot of walk-in clients because the company was a significant brand in the market. Clients come in directly to lease or purchase properties because this company manages three major islands in Abu Dhabi. So you don’t really have much to do as an agent, but I didn’t build my performance on what the company already provided. In a month, I was doing about eight, 10 deals, with a huge percentage of these deals coming from the network I had built in the market, people that I had met previously; property owners, investors, tenants among others.
So at this point, I felt okay. I think I’m getting to a point in the market now where people are already calling for my services, giving me transactions to handle, properties to manage on their behalf. But during the COVID 19 pandemic, unfortunately, the company shut down.
At that point, I already knew the market and also had an idea of where I was going because I have always thought of having my own establishment. The country and the city provides an enabling environment for you to practice and to do what you know how to do best. So after the company shut down, right there when we were told that the company was closing down, I knew it was time.
Comparing real estate markets in Abu Dhabi and Nigeria
I would say that there’s a significant improvement in Nigeria’s real estate sector compared to what it used to be back then before we left. I mean, many professionals are taking their time to actually travel the world, study international practices and see how the global real estate market works and they’ve successfully implemented those ideas and concepts back home, which has brought improvement to the market compared to what it was.
Although there’s still a gap between what it is here in Abu Dhabi and what it is back home in terms of how things are done, especially in terms of regulation, management and oversight. In the UAE, , real estate sector is highly structured with multiple governing bodies that ensures order, accountability and real estate market control. So, we still have a lot to do back home to match this level of professionalism and standardisation. However, we are not where we used to be, we have really improved back home and I believe that over time, Nigeria will also get there.
Lessons to learn from Abu Dhabi real estate market
First of all, I would say the most valuable lesson is the role of regulatory bodies here in the UAE, they have made the real estate industry very well organised and standardised. This is something we need to learn about and adopt, how to bring in the international policies especially regarding governance, licensing and investor protection. In the UAE, the real estate industry has various distinct segments. We have the property management, facility management, maintenance and many more. There is an owners’ association that represents the affairs and interests of property owners. There are tenant’s associations, property dispute resolution departments for landlords-tenants’ issues, buyers-sellers matters and developers-investors conflict. So a lot of things have been put in place here that we can also learn from, that I believe will really help our real estate back home.
Getting properties here has its own process. There are two primary ways of getting properties. It’s either you are buying outright or you are getting bank finance called a mortgage. Mortgage process can be finalised practically within a month or more based on certain criteria. After which the property is being transferred between the buyer and the seller, it’s mostly done at the government-assigned office. Once all the documentations are ready, buyers get their ownership certificate immediately the transfer is done. If it’s a mortgage, the bank representative comes with all necessary documents to the trustee office or municipality where the transfer takes place. All payments are made; the title deed is generated there and then. It takes only one day to get the title deed compared to back home in Nigeria. I can tell you for free that this is not peculiar to Nigeria alone. I’ve been to other places in Africa, like in South Africa for instance; the process of getting your deed of ownership also takes far longer. But things are done differently here. It’s just in a day, and it makes things easier for everyone. So if you’re buying in cash, it makes it faster. If you’re buying through a mortgage, you know the bank has to go through all their due diligence, go through all the paperwork, pre-approvals, approvals, getting documents exchanged before the transfer is done.
Managing risks associated with real estate
It takes me back to what I said earlier about regulation. The UAE real estate industry is a highly regulated market. For example, if you’re investing in Abu Dhabi, Dubai or other emirates be it in a “ready property”, an off-plan project, primary or secondary market, the country has practically developed regulations that protect investors against risk and extend investment security. As one of the safest countries in the world, the government protects you as an investor. For instance, if you’re investing in a project here, you pay directly to the government- controlled developers’ escrow account. The developer only accesses these funds as construction progresses. And before a developer starts the project here, they should have shown capability of actually financing this project independently of investors’ funds. By so doing, this ensures that even if the project faces issues, the investors’ funds are secured.
Again, as property owners here, if there’s an annual fee you pay, it’s called service charges; part of which goes into a reserve fund. This also protects you in the long term because at some point, there’s a regulation that says at a certain year, the government expects that buildings have to be reviewed. There is an expiry time where a project has to be reviewed. When it comes to this, the government may initiate refurbishment or rebuild a structure to maintain property value and protect investment; this accumulated service charge could be used as part of funds to facilitate this rebuild. So, the chances or risk of losing properties here is highly, highly minimal.
Choice property in-demand amongst Nigerians in Abu Dhabi
Yes, I’ll say a lot of Nigerian and other African families invest in townhouses and villas typically within gated communities. These are what you call semi-detached in Nigeria. Of course, we have other investors who particularly focus on long-term investment with rental income, go for a one-or two-bedroom apartments in high-rises or more affordable and “in demand” areas. It really depends on their investment goals and capabilities.
Opportunities in the real estate market in Nigeria
I would say that in the near future, we’re already exploring future plans in Nigeria and that’s one of the major reasons we visited the country two years ago. We have already forged a certain level of partnerships aimed at creating a viable bridge between Nigerians, Africans here and opportunities back home. This looks really promising because of the name we have created here; we get a lot of inquiries from people who ask us for advice regarding investments back home. And also we have talked to a lot of international investors here on the possibility of investment opportunities in Nigeria.
I recently had a meeting with an Arab team setting up in Lagos, trying to also bring a different approach into the housing sector in Lagos. I wouldn’t be permitted to say much on this, but it’s one of the partnerships that we are just getting into on how to bring in international investors into the local market because a lot of people hear about Nigeria and they are really interested to see what we have. So, we are planning in the long term, in the near future, to actually bridge the gap between international investors and what we have back home.
