RENTING AN APARTMENT IN LAGOS: The Landlord, Agent and Tenant Drama

Renting an apartment in Lagos has become a feat that deserves a standing ovation for whoever can successfully scale through the hurdle without any hitches. And I’m talking about the prospective tenants and just maybe the real estate agents who are the middle men in the course of renting an apartment.

As for the Landlords, they are usually the outsiders in the whole process, leaving the real estate agents to do their dirty jobs. Their role only become obvious after the deal is sealed.

In this article, we take a close look at the major players in the process of an renting an apartment in Lagos.

When it comes to finding a suitable place to call home in Lagos, a prospective tenant does not necessarily go on that journey alone even if the tenant wants to. Many tenants would rather have nothing to do with real estate agents who serve as middle men when finding and subsequently renting an apartment, but are these professionals as bad as they are perceived to be?

It is common knowledge that not too many real estate agents are actually professionals in that field, hence it is a case of the rotten apples spoiling the whole barrel.

In as much as a tenant would ordinarily want to bypass the real estate agents who serve as middlemen in the course of a real estate transaction, their role is very sacrosanct to that transaction.

Without real estate agents finding accommodation in Lagos will be an arduous task, albeit have these agents reduced the plight of the average Lagosian?

Though we have real estate agents who do give the wrong impression about the profession, they are usually not the cause of all the woes of the tenant.

A real estate agent tries as much as possible to do the bidding of a landlord as well as doing the needful and in the process he may be seen by a prospective tenant as a major obstacle in his quest to rent the apartment.

It is always easy for a tenant to attribute his or her woes to the role a real estate agent plays in the course of renting an apartment in Lagos, but truth be told, the landlord is that dominant force the tenant  doesn’t really get to interact with before the deal is sealed.

A real estate agent should ordinarily serve as advisers to Landlords but how many landlords take advice? When a real estate agent tries to convince a greedy landlord that the price of rent for his property is on the high side, they still remain adamant in their ding dong leaving the agent with no other option but to do the landlord’s bidding.

If you must know, in the real sense agents do not hike the price placed on rent for a property, it is usually the landlord who insists on the price he wants his property leased out. Asides serving in an advisory capacity, the agent ensures he gets that property off the market by finding a suitable and responsible tenant for the apartment. They may face a lot of insults, humiliation, stress and sometimes they even lose money in the process but they most often than not get the job done.

There are times when tenants would claim to have been cajoled or deceived into renting an apartment by the agent in charge, but the question I would ask is, are those tenants kids? Don’t they have minds of their own?

No one should push you into something or anything without your authorization because at the end of the day the only person you will have to blame is yourself. Blaming someone else is shelving responsibilities.

That is not to say that we don’t have dubious agents. There are agents who would give a prospective tenant a wrong picture of an apartment just because they want it off the market as fast as possible so that they can seal the deal and earn their agent’s fee. This happens mostly with apartments that are either under renovation or newly constructed.

They would tell the prospective tenant that certain infrastructure would be put in place or the house will take a new shape,but once the unsuspecting tenant pays his rent nothing happens again till he moves into the apartment and ends up living with the lie he was told.

Albeit like I said earlier, the aforementioned premise can be avoided if the tenant is not so gullible.

Fine, there are real estate agents in Lagos, especially the street-wise ones that give the profession it’s bad reputation, however, the true real estate agents are just victims of a situation that is often times not their call.

I won’t blame those tenants who would prefer to deal directly with the landlord of a property because of the many fees attached to renting an apartment in Lagos though…

Certainly when you deal directly with a landlord, you spend less. Albeit our society will be worse than what is obtainable in a typical African Jungle if due process is not followed.

REFERENCE: http://nigeriarealestatehub.com/renting-an-apartment-in-lagos.html/