Education is the most powerful tool you can use to Change the World – Nelson Mandela

Could education be the key? #ignitingthefire

Daniel Effiong (not real name) is a 28-year-old graduate who has been unemployed for some time but suddenly his luck is about to change. He answers an ad for job vacancy and before you know it, he is proffering business cards around introducing himself as a real estate agent despite the fact that his degree was in the arts and humanities. He has no prior experience or exposure in real estate and yet expects to somehow broker deals that run into the millions. Not surprisingly, he is immediately frustrated that his career stagnates because he is not fully equipped with the necessary foundation upon which to build his career.

His story is very similar. At 3Invest, we are aware that there are thousands of individuals working in the Nigerian real estate sector today who claim to be agents representing all aspects of property development, sales, leasing and management; and there is very little way to ensure that the standards of service are the same across board.

Real Estate and property development is a finely nuanced industry that appears deceptively easy to penetrate and quickly becomes a cesspool of frustrated dreams because many do not know or understand why the industry is structured the way it is, or in the event something is lacking, how it should be made better. It is not just about having the money to build and design.

In Nigeria, there are only 30 accredited universities and polytechnics that provide courses in estate management; the foundation degree for a career in real estate. A sound education in real estate will produce effective leadership in the supervision, management and control of interests in landed property and the built environment. An informed real estate professional is an empowered one. The individual can make the best strategic business decisions on his behalf or that of his clients towards a positive commercial outcome.

It is because the role of the real estate practitioner has not been fully recognised and celebrated, this is why there is very little support for the professional development in the field. When you think that a person’s first home can serve as the economic investment that will impact not only their life, that of their families but also generations yet to come; and you consider the role the real estate developer, financier, sales agent and property management professional has to play in this journey, you will agree that education is an invaluable part of the process of igniting the catalytic fire of growth within the sector.

This is why education is one of the focal areas of the 2014 Real Estate Unite which is “Igniting the F.I.R.E: Where lies the key?” We want to know if the current curriculum has adequately equipped our current professionals who have passed through the various programmes, if it suffices for the new crop of graduates to enter into the real estate job market or if like most disciplines in our educational system, it is in need of dire reform. We want to know if there are certain vocations within the sector that need to be explored, developed and promoted. We want to know how competitive our accredited professionals are to venture into other emerging markets across the continent; that is, can a professional certified in Nigeria practice in Ghana, which belongs to the same economic zone on the continent and vice versa? What new tools and technologies do we need to be employing in the practice of real estate businesses and how do we ensure a consistent quality of service across board? How do we empower real estate professionals to protect their projects, clients and investments?

The questions are endless and the only way we can come to a unified base point to is to aggressively tackle the issue together in one of our highly charged panels at the 2014 Real Estate Unite conference. The aim of the panel on education, which will feature impressive personalities from the field and academia, is to bring forth actionable items to really maximise the limitless possibilities of real estate development.

You should not be a passive bystander to this. Real Estate is currently 7% of the national GDP and that is because certain factors have not been fully catalysed. If education is the key to do so, we could be seeing an intense surge in investments that will bring about shared prosperity for all; especially as one major result will be a closure in the 17 million housing deficit currently facing the country.

So join the discussion at the conference. Your registration gives you a seat at the table on how we can push the economy forward and change the country’s future. We at 3Invest know that real estate is the engine to do so, what we also want to find out is if education is the key to get that engine moving smoothly and powerfully.

We want to hear from you and look forward to seeing you at Real Estate Unite. If education is indeed the key, then we better start with the panel. Let’s build the foundation for a strong and dynamic real estate sector.

2014-08-22