FirstBank’s ex-Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Bisi Onasanya has opened up on his new venture, The Address Homes, his drive and vision.

The chairman and founder of The Address Homes, Onasanya revealed that “The fundamental goal of the firm was to provide smart homes which could boast of the basic amenities that were reflective of global best property development practices.

According to him, “We didn’t venture into The Address Homes to make money, even though every business is set out to make money. The real intention, for me, is to allow us to do something different from the way previous participants and players in real estate have done.

He said: “We believe there is a need to inject some integrity into the real estate business. We also believe at times that quality was a bit deficient and there is a need to do things mostly to some level of international standards, irrespective of where you are. We wanted to come into the industry and put up structures that we can call homes, not houses. These are homes that will compete with the best that you can see outside of the country, and yet without making you break the bank in terms of being able to pay or affordability. We see people trying to relocate from abroad – Canada, the United States of America (US) and Europe. There is a minimum standard of living they have been used to. They like to enter a home and there are basic things they look to see, the environment they also like to see. We found that these are missing to some extent. We wanted a situation in which you live in the Address Homes and you are proud because of the comfortability we offer. That is what we believe in. That’s what we have been able to do. Have we done everything? We’ve done our best, but we still believe that we’ll keep improving”.

According to the chairman, The Address Homes characteristically offers flexible payment plans to enable home buyers spread payments at their convenience.

“We are very competitive in terms of pricing, but more importantly, we are very flexible in our payment structure. We allow people to dictate to us within a particular time frame, how they want to structure their payments during construction.”

“Even at that, we’ve had instances where we completed the project, but people had difficulty making the final payment. They make a special request for us to allow them to move into the property without completing payment, and yet we still oblige them.”

“All these have endeared us to the few people who have had the opportunity to interact with us and to enjoy the services that we offer. So, when I see those things, they make me feel proud that what we set out to achieve, we are on course.”

“In doing that also, we have also succeeded in contributing to the housing deficit. Right now, we play in the medium market sector essentially, and today we have a total of, both ongoing and completed, over 250 units of houses and still counting. I have mentioned why we are different. We don’t make noise and we don’t tell you you must break the bank to access our services. For every single estate that we have built, we make sure that we do not just hand over the keys to you, we follow you and make sure we provide facilities management to make living in those estates very convenient and comfortable for you. We also provided some guarantees of a minimum of five to 10 years on the structure so that if anything happens to the windows and doors, we take responsibility. We provide you with 24 hours electricity, CCTV, security, water, and others.”

Speaking further, Onasanya noted that all of the firm’s construction projects were subjected to periodic integrity tests by the Lagos State Government to ensure compliance to set standards and also ensure standards for home buyers.

“We do not embark on any construction with a formal building plan approval from the Lagos State Government. At every stage, the structural engineer goes to the site to certify every stage before they can do any concrete work. After the structural engineer has done that, Lagos State Government, that is LASBCA, will check what has been done and sign off on it before we go on, and we use this process on all our projects.”

Shedding more light on the Luxuria features, the Address Homes boss noted: “When I say maisonettes, there is a reason why we do things differently. First and foremost, we found out that people live in flats. Developers built flats but we also found out that when you live in flats, some elements of privacy are denied – you come out of your bedroom, enter your sitting room. People who lived abroad are used to multi-level structures. We chose to do things differently. I was discussing with an architect and he said what he has observed in this environment is that people would build blocks of flats and then put them on top of the flats penthouses. And I said it is those penthouses, which are very few, that are sold first. People are ready to pay any amount of money for the services. Why can’t we do a project where every single apartment looks like a penthouse. If you go to Luxuria, you will see the massive space that we have of two levels. It comes with two kitchens, which means that madam has a reserved house while allowing the chef to use the other area; two living rooms, a bar area, a swimming pool, etc.”