Middleman racket: brokers and speculators push Lagos property prices higher
Written on
A new breed of property broker that buys or controls undervalued homes and land before reselling at a margin is adding pressure to Lagos prices, though estate agents disagree on how much of the increase is broker-driven and how much reflects land, cement and financing costs.
A new breed of property broker is becoming part of the pricing chain in Lagos and other major Nigerian cities, scouting undervalued houses and plots, negotiating directly with owners, securing agreements, adding a margin and looking for buyers — a shift from the traditional agency model that earned a commission for bringing a willing buyer and seller together.
Under the traditional model, an agent might earn a percentage of a N100 million transaction. Under the newer model, a broker who acquires the same property for N85 million and resells it for N100 million could make N15 million before transaction and holding costs, creating an incentive to identify assets that can be bought cheaply, controlled and resold higher. Each transaction can then become a reference point for the next asking price, allowing a chain of mark-ups to develop without any corresponding improvement in the property.
The trend is playing out against sharp appreciation in Lagos. The 2026 Lagos Real Estate Industry Report by Agusto & Company estimates that land prices within five kilometres of the Lekki-Epe corridor rose by 25 to 40 per cent between the first quarter of 2025 and the first quarter of 2026, while land in Ibeju-Lekki rose from about N15 million per plot in 2024 to as much as N35 million in 2026. In the Bluewater-Okunde coastal zone, land values climbed from about N329,000 per square metre in 2021 to between N2.5 million and N2.8 million in 2026, an increase of 660 to 751 per cent.
Short-let conversions have added another dimension. Lagos’ short-let market generated an estimated N281.03 billion in revenue in 2025 according to the Lagos Short-let Market Report 2025 by Edala Development, which covered 5,806 listings and projects revenue of about N285.5 billion for 2026, finding that short-lets can generate returns three to six times higher than conventional residential leases. In Banana Island, the average short-let rate reportedly reached about N329,000 per night in 2025, encouraging investors to value apartments on their short-let potential rather than conventional rental income.
Registered estate agents differed on the extent of brokers’ influence. Dr Adeniyi Tinubu, Vice Chairman, International, of the Association of Estate Agents in Nigeria (AEAN) and Chief Executive Officer of Hudders Field Property Agency, said brokers, flippers and speculative investors accelerate Lagos’ boom but are better described as “price amplifiers” than price-setters, because land scarcity, inflation and exchange-rate pressures remain the underlying forces. He said asking prices are often benchmarked to what neighbouring properties are listed for rather than what they actually sold for, warning that speculative land holding combined with aggressive asking-price benchmarking can make anticipated future prices the basis for today’s prices.
AEAN National Chairman Olugbenga Ismail said speculation can amplify an already rising market, noting that where plots are repeatedly resold over short periods without improvement or value addition, each transaction may introduce another layer of expected profit. He advocated greater transparency, professionalism and increased housing supply rather than direct price controls, arguing that the solution to affordability lies in producing enough properly titled, serviced and appropriately priced housing. Abiodun Adelaja, Chairman of AEAN’s Lagos State Chapter, attributed the steady rise in prices largely to construction material costs and general inflation, and called for lower construction costs and greater government intervention through public housing estates. The report also noted that reliable transaction-price data remain limited, as Nigeria has no centralised mandatory registry of completed property transactions.