What to do to make the property you want to buy fit for mortgage

Every property, house or land, has the potential to attract a mortgage loan that will enable the buyer to pay for and acquire it for whatever purpose he wants to put it into. But for some reasons, they don’t have.

Besides policy and regulatory issues, properties can be denied mortgage loan because of the environment in which they are located which explains why only 5 percent of land in Nigeria is under mortgage, while the remaining 95 percent qualifies as dead capital.

Of all the necessary documents a property should have to qualify it for a mortgage, a survey document from the government is the most critical because it is the document that provides information about the coordinates of where a property is located.

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If a property you want to buy has a survey, but the property is not properly located according to the government’s records, there will be a problem. This problem is the reason banks will not underwrite the mortgage for the purchase.

Additionally, your property will not qualify for a mortgage due if the environment in which it is located is not right. For instance, if a property is located opposite a burial ground, that will make it difficult for people to buy the property. Similarly, if the property is located opposite a dumpsite, that will also create issues for both buyers and financiers.

In Nigeria, buying a property is a no mean feat. It gives the buyer a sense of worth and pride. And because in this part of the world mortgage is not easily accessible, many people buy off their own pockets, that is, from their life savings.

To avoid paying out of their pockets and to find properties that can attract mortgage, buyers are advised to engage the services of professionals who know how to do what is called ‘due diligence’ before buying a property.

There are many such professionals out there. One of them is Qshelter Limited. This company is in business to facilitate home ownership through trusted platforms that connect developers, homebuyers, and mortgage providers.

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QShelter offers an opportunity to developers and professional property vendors, like estate surveyors and valuers, to list properties for free on their platform. From the comfort of their phones, laptops, or desktops, buyers can apply for the properties they want to buy.

“We assist developers in listing their properties on our platform. In addition to that, we also onboard real estate surveyors and valuers, who are credible, on our platform so that they can list properties of their clients on our platform,” Olugbenga Alamu, the COO of QShelter, confirmed to BusinessDay in an interview.

Apart from free property listing and onboarding of professional vendors, Alam revealed that before properties are listed on their platform, they have to conduct due diligence on the property to ensure it exists and that it is good for a mortgage.

Alamu said they also ensure that the property is in an accessible location or good environment; that it has a good government survey, and that it is not encumbered in any way, in which case it is free from government acquisition or family dispute.

“We have people from the diaspora and all over Nigeria coming to the platform to check for property. They want to be assured that we are not wasting their time, we are not wasting our own time, and we are not wasting the bank’s time. And for the due diligence we do, we don’t collect any money from customers,” he assured.

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Alamu disclosed further that they also do mortgage facilitation, in which case they help property buyers to secure mortgage facilities with minimum delay.

“We relate with the banks easily because most of our colleagues here are ex-bankers. 95 percent of our colleagues are ex-bankers. It was deliberate that we got ex-bankers who know the way the banks talk and the requirements they need.

In fact, I can say confidently that 90 percent of us have worked in mortgage banks; we know what is involved because we had been operators in that space; so, relating with the banks is not a problem because we know what the issues are,” he stated.

SENIOR ANALYST - REAL ESTATE

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