Monthly, Flexible Rent Payment Berths in Nigeria

RentSmallSmall.com (RSS), a company founded by 31-year old Tunde Balogun is set to provide affordable apartment for people seeking comfortable accommodation in Nigeria.

With the use of technology, the firm aims to solve house rent challenges being face by Nigerians, starting with Lagos State by making the process easy and affordable.

In a press meeting recently organized in Lagos, Balogun stated that the company aims to confront challenges of getting an apartment in Nigeria.

“It is important to state that we are not the first with a flexible payment plan but our model is definitely different. It is no news that the norm in Lagos State as well as most states in Nigeria is the yearly payment of rent. A huge fraction of inhabitants and tenants largely complain about the impracticality of this scheme over the years. Hence, RentSmallSmall.com offers a unique plan that proves to be a win-win not just to tenants, but even to homeowners as well.

“Tenants get on-budget housing, flexibility when it comes to lease and payment of rent (monthly, quarterly and annually), as well as ease when it comes to selection of suitable apartment (locations that maintain proximity to work or place of business) as well as reduced delays in finding such apartments and less bureaucracy for move-in modalities,” he said.

According to Balogun, the package would afford home owners the opportunity to get steady, reliable income throughout the year.

On why he’s coming with a new strategy where apartment seekers could chose to rent an apartment and pay as they stay, he said, 

“Living outside the country for many years, and experiencing seamless process in getting apartment and finding everything conveniently, only to come back to Nigeria to see that our rental processes is in shambles.

We realized that tenants in Nigeria are unable to access affordable houses with flexible payment. If you are earning your day to day living on a go, why not pay your rent? We want people to be able to pay their rent effectively and decide how they chose to stay; monthly, quarterly or biannually and people should be able to get property and move there within 48 hours.

On getting properties for lease, he said, “we can’t go with all the traditional agents, though we intend working with a few credible ones soon. Right now, we are working with selected agents, who are big time player like Estate Link, and we are partnering with Mansard Insurance to provide insurance for our customers, Furniture Sure, Nedcomoaks, and Rydal News LTD.

The graduate of Business Administration from Stanford University, said, “When I moved back to Nigeria in 2015, I was told to pay for one year in advance, and agent and agreement fees separate. Knowing that these are not the norms in any sane system, l was resolved more strongly to do something about it as fast as possible. 

‘’Few years down the line, I met with my partners and we wanted to solve the problem and change the market; that’s how we came up with RSS, We work directly with landlords. Our business model works in a way that landlord gives us the base rent of the property on annual basis and then we mark it up by a certain little percentage and with that mark up, we break it down into monthly payment. The landlord gets 92% of the rent while we take 8 percent. This is an advantage to tenants because from the 8%, we pay insurance which protect the tenure of the contract. This is to ensure the tenant is protected for certain months against default. A default could come as a result of job loss, critical illness or accident and the landlord benefits here. 

‘’For rent seeker, when they come on our platform www.rentsmallsmall.com, they are exposed to varieties of properties and the amount range. Once you find the property you want, you then have the option of choosing either monthly, quarterly or biannually. Before we accept a tenant, we take him or her through a verification process. We will find out what he or she earns, the source of their income and how consistent it is, proof of identification, and we do our documentation. This is done to ensure that whoever is renting a property from us is eligible. The landlord then gets a comprehensive report on our investigation which helps to give him an informed decision about the tenant’’.

He added that the workability and efficiency of the RentSmallSmall.com initiative is quite impressive as well as totally sustainable and it’s not hard to imagine that in the coming months, this design will be adopted by many other states across the federation, as well as other African countries that do not operate this scheme.