| Real estate is like
endurance race – Ede, Eternal Dreams
boss
From CHIDI NNADI, Enugu
Thursday, November
26, 2009
|
|
|
•Mr
Felix Chukwurah Ede
Photo : Sun News Publishing |
|
|
After graduation from school, Mr Felix Chukwurah Ede, managing
director and chief executive officer of Eternal Dreams International
Limited, a firm of real estate, pest control services, investment
management and consultancy, joined his school mates in search
of white cola jobs.
But he was quick to jettison the search as he discovered that
the exercise would be an arduous one as there were too few
jobs for too many job seekers.
Thus, he decided to go into business, beginning with the little
amount he had gathered from supplies and the support he got
from his parents.
The lucky Ede was, however, to climb the ladder of real estate
business faster as he had brought into it innovations that
have carved a niche for Eternal Dreams east of the Niger and
in other major cities of the country where they do business.
And having made good marks in the real estate and investment
management sub-sector, the Eternal boss told Daily Sun that
the time has come for them to unfold their groundbreaking
innovation in property development that would see the poor
in Enugu State smiling as they become landlords. How will
his company do this? Hear him on this great innovation and
more on real estate business. Excerpt:
In the beginning
Eternal Dreams International Limited started in 1996 and since
that time we have been operating. We are real estate and industrial
management consultants. After graduation from school everybody
started to look for jobs and I was not an exception; incidentally
there was no job anywhere. But some of us who knew we had
the potentials to actually move on went solo into business.
Initial capital
To a large extent my parents stood by me and I also was into
contracts business, doing supplies of various goods. Through
this means I was able to raise some capital and my father
who is now late and my mother also helped in giving me the
balance I needed to take off with.
Coming into real estate business
I have always known that I have a knack for real estate, especially
in providing whatever that is missing in the industry; that
has been part of my nature. I had found out that something
is missing in the real estate business and we actually came
in to fill this gap.
Eternal 13 years after
I will say that sometimes we grow to the peak and sometimes
we crash land. However, if the economy of our company continues
to be like this and with our having paid our price, because
real estate business is one you must have to pay your price.
Incidentally, we have broadened our scope and we now do investment
management, we help people to invest in real estate and by
so doing help them to grow their money in the business.
High rents in Enugu
Enugu State as we all know happened to be the capital of former
East Central State and right now in the South-East; Enugu
is still assumed to be the headquarters of the South-East.
So, a lot of people from the other states of the South-East
have investments in Enugu by way of properties and companies
and a lot of them are still residing in Enugu. So, Enugu is
basically over-populated and almost everybody because the
city has remained the capital of the East everybody wants
something in the city.
Our niche
We do a lot of things at EDI Limited; we try to make our clients,
the landlords to be very happy. So, what we do in so many
places is that we do what other people do because lawyers
are also into real estate management, but why I think landlords
come to us is that we created another method of management
which we called rent insurance.
It is a method that guarantees every landlord that his rent
will be paid whether the tenants pay or not. And the percentage
is not too higher because we know that the real estate business
is a business where you have to expect your profit to come
in years, the investment you made this year might yield you
something in five years coming, it’s like an endurance
race.
So, real estate business is actually a business where you
don’t have to rush. I think why clients are coming to
us right now is because of this new innovation in real estate
business and real estate property management, rent insurance,
which we pioneered. In fact, it’s superb and every landlord
that heard about it fell for it, and we also intend to spice
it up a little bit as time goes on.
Governor Chime slow in housing development
I do not agree with you that he is not doing housing at the
same pace with other infrastructure such as roads, I think
his pace is quite fast also in housing delivery, but the demand
is higher than the pace. But I would advise that he should
look into building houses that will be useful to the low and
medium income classes; if he does that then he would have
scored all the points as far as provision of housing is concerned.
Nigerian economy
It’s really tough, sometimes you kind of punish yourself
a little bit so that your service charge will be also punished,
but you still find out that the different towns you are operating
in will determine what your service charge in a particular
business is going to be like; if you charge the normal Enugu
person what we charge in Abuja, for example, you find out
that, that person might not be able to do business with you.
So, we watch the progress of whoever is our customer to know
how we also respond. Then as it has to do with state of the
economy of the country, it’s quite difficult, I don’t
think any one finds it easy these days, if you are in business,
especially if you are self-employed, nobody finds it easy;
so you just have to work and work; and have to get a lot of
people that will go to different places to speak for you,
you like have to enlarge your cooperate outlook, you have
to like move out, so I think what is also helping us is that
we don’t just operate in Enugu alone, we also move out,
we have other catchment areas.
Our constraints
Our major constraint is money, sometimes you find out there
is a business that is available, but you are unable to conclude
it and the month catches up with you and you try to pay salaries,
there are so many challenges, but I think the biggest challenge
that we’ve been having is money.
NHF as source of funding
It’s not as easy as it sounds, sometimes you try to
do that, but you find out that the percentage they charge
when you make a proposition is outrageous and what you have
to do is that if you are being sincere to yourself like a
lot of people are now being chased by the ICPC, the EFCC for
financial crime, you have to check out that in the present
economy if I get this will I be able to get that and then
if you check, if you want to be truthful to yourself if yes
is not in your mind, then don’t go for it, but, however,
there was a time we tried and we found out that it was not
as easy as they say it, I think the government should look
into that, they said that they created this to make it easier
for real estate companies to get soft facilities to rise up,
but it has not been so.
Housing for all
I think the government can try, but I don’t think that
the Federal Government can really solve all housing problems;
at least, if they do they will run us out of business because
we won’t have anything to do again. As much as we pray
they try because we can’t even take care of all the
people that have the need and then there are people that can’t
come to us because they cannot afford it, but they still have
the need, so, as much as we know that those problems exist,
they will keep existing because the more houses we build,
the more people are coming up, it is like let them try to
face the low income class and the middle class, that is what
I will advise the government to do.
Make N3 million by
referring a bullet-proof car buyer
How
to Get Any Woman You Want. Click Here!
Make
N450,000 Online Monthly. Click Here
|
