The Global President of the Kingsway International Christian Centre, Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo has said that people who ignore investing in the real estate sector of Lagos now will regret it in 10 years time.
This is just as he advised against buying shares as a form of investment, asserting that real estate is a better option.
Ashimolowo said this while speaking during a recent episode of the KK show.
He recounted days when a plot of land in Lagos went for as low as N500 and N1000, contrasting it with what is obtainable today.
He said, “Anybody who does not invest in Lagos now will regret in 10 years time, because some of us regretted not responding to LAGOS on time, I came to Lagos as a young pastor when a plot of land in Opebi was N500, and AllenAvenue was N1000 for a plot. Allen was a bush. Ikeja areas were bush.
Opebi was a bush. A plot of land in Isolo was N500.
“The same Opebi which I wouldn’t buy for N500 in 1979/80, and now went in 2004 and bought the plot for N10m, and built four flats and a small house at the back, and stayed there for a few years. I now sold the whole place for N120 or N150m in 2018, my own investment there was N55m.”
Ashimolowo also recounted how he lost about N200m buying shares in Nigerian banks when he could have invested the same amount in buying lands.
The clergyman said, “The Nigerian banks, I am here today, am 72, and can say what I like, if you take me to court, you are wasting your money because I intend to talk about investments, and why you should do real estate, and not all these buying shares in banks because I lost about N200m in Nigerian banks. N200m worth of shares and they didn’t sell it N30m; if I had used the money to buy land, I don’t even need to cut the grass. And I am not even talking about wonder banks, I am talking of the ones that are in existence today, and every time their shares go down, their MDs and founders go up, How come?”
