High rents: Reptiles, spiders occupy empty Abuja houses

Residential houses in Abuja metropolis, especially those in highbrow areas, are becoming what can be termed “ghost houses”, as the number of empty houses continues to increase while lizards, spider cobwebs and other animals have conveniently found homes in them.

Due to high rent, residents now avoid houses within the city centre and prefer to either acquire houses of their own as small as it may be, or live in rented houses mostly on the outskirts of the city.

After a recent trip around town by Daily Trust for an assessment of rents, it was gathered that as a result of high costs, many houses are left unoccupied, with countless carrying “To let” signposts and banners pasted on the entrance.

As a result of being left empty for a long period, some houses have begun to wear out, losing shape and stability, with signs of rot while many have been overgrown with thick grasses, especially due to persistent rains.

Mallam Musbau Suleiman, an estate agent who deals with properties around Wuse II and Maitama, told Daily Trust that the frequent complaint from property owners is that they also acquired lands at high costs to build properties, and cannot afford to be at the losing end by reducing rent.

“Even today, if you go to the building materials market to purchase items to build a house you will find out that the prices are very high and you have workers to pay, so you wouldn’t blame them, you can imagine a piece of land in Maitama going for almost a billion naira depending on the size,” he said.

Suleiman also gave an analysis of rents, saying in the Wuse/Maitama, a three bedroom flat goes for between about N2million per year and N3million, depending on the size and location of the house.

“Sometimes, after paying such a huge amount to property owners you find out that there are several things you still need to work on for your own comfort such as plumbing works, changing of doors and windows, leaking roofs and all that, so by the time the landlord fixes all these problems before he decides to put it on rent, he will definitely increase the amount to get back what he has spent,” he said.

“In the past, people could afford to pay house rents without complaining but now most people who own property maybe on the outskirts of the town like Airport road, Lugbe, Masaka, Mararaba or Suleja and others have either completed them or found a way to make it more habitable. Even if some houses are still under construction, they move in with their families rather than renewing their heavy rents in town,” he added.

“For a one bedroom flat, you could get that for one between one million naira and 1.2m while a self-contained room goes for N600,000 to N800,000 but you can also find some that go for N500-600,000,” he said.

In Gwarimpa Estate, the rates are almost similar to that of Wuse as a three bedroom flats goes for N2million, N1.8million to N1.5million while a two bedroom flat goes for N1million – N1.5million, and a one bedroom flat goes for N800 to N1 million while a self- contained ranges from N450500,000.

Between Wuse II and Maitama, houses are remain the way they used be to as 50% of the property under lease are still not occupied.

According to another estate agent in Wuse II, Abbas Ibrahim, rents in these two areas don’t really change.

He said houses in these areas are generally known to be expensive and have remained that way.

“Because a lot of clients cannot afford such amount of money, you find a lot of property in this two areas empty but in some cases when you meet the owner one on one and negotiate, they can reduce it but if you are dealing with an agent, negotiation is always under probability,” he said.