The Chairman of Gtext Homes, Stephen Akintayo has said that the company has a vision of developing 25,000 green and smart homes between now and 2035, also revealing that it is working on 200 estates with about 30 of them currently going on in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Asaba, Abeokuta, Oyo State and Abuja.
One of the estates, Jasper Hillview Estate is a 300-unit estate sitting on two-and-half hectares of land in its first phase. It has four blocks of 50 apartments each. These consist of 24 units of three bedrooms, 12 units of four bedrooms and 4 units of five bedrooms in the first phase.
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Mr. Akintayo, who revealed this at the launch of the estate located in Lugbe District, Abuja recently, added that, by next month end, they would be launching their third estate.
“ Very soon, we will be launching the fourth one here in Abuja; we are working on 200 estates; we currently have over 30 of them in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Asaba, Abeokuta, Oyo State and Abuja”, he said.
Continuing, he said, “in Lagos, we have more than 10 estates already. So, our vision is to build green and smart homes but not just that, we want to have estates that give life laughter. Some of our estates are bigger than this; we have put a golf course there, polo club, mall, hotels, cinemas and all the basic infrastructure for a good lifestyle.”
Akintayo said it was important that developers began to think of housing not just from the perspective of building houses, but also giving people quality lifestyle. He disclosed that part of their vision was to look at some estates that could be like country homes so that they could have tourism.
He added that some of the estates that they would be proposing would be like country homes where buyers would come and would be taking fresh milk from the cow. “These are the kind of things we are looking at; not just real estate, but a lifestyle and those who have invested with us in Dubai know that some of the properties they bought from us there were those that enhanced that kind of lifestyles.
“Some have worked with us in UK and US. We are in those countries as well, not just in Nigeria and for us, we need to change the narrative; we need to change the game. We can’t keep waiting for government; privately, there are things that we can begin to do.
It is not easy, but we have to emphasise that it is doable; once we have faith, once we believe in visioning, there is nothing that is impossible,” he said.
Responding to a question on inflation and cost of housing in Nigeria, Akintayo said that housing affordability had a lot to do with government policy, adding that affordability of housing was the same anywhere in the world as houses are not cheap. For example, three bedroom apartment in this estate goes for N100 million.
According to him, “in the US, if you want to buy a three bedroom apartment, it ranges from $200, 000 to $350,000 and when you convert that amount to Naira, you will realise that N100 million for three bedroom is cheap in Nigeria. But what is different in America is that you don’t pay that $200, 000 or $350, 000 at once. You can have up to 30 years to make that payment.”
Mike Okiro, former Inspector General of Police, who performed the ground breaking for the project, said that Gtext was bringing innovation into housing in Abuja and congratulated the firm on the feat.
“If we take a look at the Maslow hierarchy of needs, you will know that a place to sleep, a place to rest is basic to all animals. So, Gtext is a trailblazer in this industry in Nigeria—providing necessary things for humans to use. So, I will say a big congratulations to Gtext,” he said.
Okiro wished that the homes would be affordable, urging the company to build for the big, the medium and the small, and not to aim at only the big so that all Nigerians would enjoy the fruits of their labour and Nigerians would enjoy what they had brought for them.
Farouq Usman, Gtext Homes CEO, explained that for their three bedrooms with boy’s quarter (BQ), the selling price was N100 million, adding that four bedrooms with BQ sold for N131.4 million.
“We have a four bedrooms penthouse selling for N150 million; we also have five bedroom and semi-detached duplex selling for N170 million. From the offer we have today, you can get as much as N5 million from each of those units. Our payment plan has offer for 12 and 36 months installment.
“Jasper Hillview Estate is one of Gtext Homes estates. We build green, sustainable, luxury, clean and smart homes. We believe that, when next you will be here, you will see what we have been trying to project to the public. So, here we have about two and half hectares of land. As you can see, we have our showroom and office,” he said.
“We are working on making this place a tourist attraction. So, the beautiful thing about housing in Nigeria is that there is so much you can do besides living in them. We are working on a cable car that is going to take you around this mountain side,” he added.
