The Chief Executive Officer of Northcourt, a real estate advisory firm, and Co-founder, Build Africa Technology Company, Ayo Ibaru, is a man who thrives on discipline, vision, and balance. Ibaru, has built a reputation for blending business insight with resilience. Beyond real estate and tech, he admits he could easily have pursued teaching or brain surgery, two professions that reflect his passion for precision and impact. In this wide-ranging conversation, Ibaru shares his inspirations, insights on Nigeria’s property market, and a bold call to scrap the Land Use Act. Oluchi Chibuzor provides the excerpts
What daily habits or routines have been most instrumental in your success as a CEO and entrepreneur?
To wake up early. Sometimes I wake up at 4 am and I sleep around 11 pm. I also like to work out a lot. I do six times a week. I do weight lifting. I like to jog, but I prefer weight lifting. I’ve been doing that now for almost a decade. I used to do it before, but I fell off. I am back now. Then I also have a strong family support system. My family is really supportive and I have a strong team here at work. They make my life a lot easier.
How do you balance the pressures of running two companies – Northcourt and Build Africa Technology Company – with personal life and wellbeing?
Christiane Amanpour has held dual or multiple contracts at different points in her career. She once had a contract working as a full-time correspondent for CNN and a contributor to CBS, and I always liked it. The reason is that I believe we are here to solve the most difficult problems for most people. So, I always like that idea. But what I’m finding out now is it’s a lot of work. You do get the joys of seeing successes happen on both fronts, whether it is Northcourt, some big tickets, investment based on research by me and my team, or with Build Africa, we’re able to supply high-quality building materials to some large sites, maybe in Enugu State, Aba or Lagos. So, you have those highs, and it makes it all worth it because people get their projects done and people see returns on their investment. But then, there are the lows where you are dealing with staffing issues, reporting to the regulator, and you have to do strategy and plan for the macroeconomic environment. Again, in Build Africa Technology Company, I have a strong team there. In fact, I have more senior management technical support there, maybe because it’s really more of a distribution, high-quality and efficiency-driven business.
Who or what has been your biggest inspiration in shaping your career path?
Interestingly, it is my dad, and he is late now. May God rest his soul. He always believed that I would do well in this. And just as my career was gathering up steam was when he passed. But he did see me execute big projects, advise international clients. He did see me go on TV and he was a bit proud. He would tell his friends. So, my dad was always clear-headed as to where he wanted us to go. I think it was Barack Obama who said every man is always trying to correct his father’s errors or exceed the standard set by his father. And I think I belong to the latter. He has given me a standard, discipline, a sense of purpose and vision. I even made reference to him in the book I co-authored with one of my very close friends, Dr Abel, ‘The Migration Paradox.’
If you weren’t in real estate and tech, what other career would you likely pursue?
I have thought about this a lot. Its twofold: One is teaching, because I’m third generation in a family of teachers. My mother was a teacher, and her dad was a teacher. So we’re going back almost 100 years now. So, teaching would have been good, lecturing again, at a more senior level, and I do a bit of that now. The second is brain surgery because it’s complex, it’s difficult, and you have to get it right. That’s the kind of mindset I take to my current work. You can’t just say, buy land, because that is so basic. There are complexities in the property process. Do we develop mixed-use assets? Do we develop long-term infrastructure? Do we develop multi-storey buildings and then make sure it’s able to withstand whatever economic challenges come? So I picked brain surgery because it just needs that type of focus, and that’s what I try to bring to what I am currently doing now.
What are the most significant trends and insights revealed in Northcourt’s 2025 Half-Year Real Estate Report, and how do they compare with what we saw in 2024?
One is the ‘smallification’ of real estate. It’s not a real word. What we found out was that in the residential real estate market, developers are finding out that it makes more sense to build houses and apartments that have fewer rooms. Five rooms and four rooms are now bespoke. They are now deliberate requests by customers or by the occupiers, as we call them in our industry. If a developer is going to market, what will be top on his mind is, how quickly can I get these assets off my hands, and how quickly can I get them at a high rate of return, and two-bedroom flats is what most developers are building. They are finding out that they can get their funding in time, return it, and then keep that cycle going. The second thing is the distribution of sub-markets. Now, as far as Nigeria’s real estate market is concerned, the order for return is Lagos, Abuja and then Port Harcourt, and they pretty much do the same thing.
But what is happening now is you’re seeing a bit of hospitality increasingly going towards the south-east, and the big point here is the Landmark Africa’s project with Enugu State. It’s something I don’t want people to sleep on because Landmark is known for pushing projects through, and they have Paul Onwuanibe, who is extremely brilliant. He’s going to get things done as they’re already making progress. So that’s going out of Lagos, and it won’t be the last.
Now, you also find Aliko Dangote’s seaport going to Ogun State. When that is done, as we know, he will get it done, we can expect the amount of traffic coming to Lagos to reduce. So, you find that also moving out. I think Lagos will always be a central market as far as Nigeria is concerned. I still think it will be number one for quite a number of years to come. But what you’re going to find increasingly is that other States, other regions, will start to have more assets of a larger value come to them. Who would have seen what Landmark Africa is doing in Enugu State today, 10 years ago. Another finding from the report is in the area of industrial real estate. Before Covid-19, industrial real estate was what we called the black sheep of the family. Residential was doing well, retail was also doing well, purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) also doing well. But after COVID-19, it became very clear to more of the market that warehousing is important, and that has continued to grow. And we put that in all our past reports and during TV analysis. But what has happened now is that even the sub-markets of warehousing have continued to see demand, and by that I mean cold storage and farmer storage. Cold storage involves farm produce, meat products and so on and so forth, while farm storage involves things like vaccines and drugs and so on and so forth. And that has seen demand. Another thing you should think about is just to go back to the decentralisation of the real estate market in Nigeria. If you look at the Dangote’s seaport and Ogun State as a whole, you can see that it is now attracting more investment. For example, I think it was Emzor, that got the approval to manufacture active agents for malaria in Nigeria and they’re going to build it in Ogun. Those are the key trends. Now, how does it compare with last year’s report? From last year, there is now an increased demand for real estate experts who know what they’re doing and I’m happy about that. When people who lack the right analysis go into real estate investment and then they lose their funding, they blame the entire market. But now you’re seeing that with the right kinds of experts’ involvement, you can have returns. The second thing is, and I have to give it to the Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development. They came up with a real estate app that pretty much allows you to log in fraudulent transactions. Now, the thing is, we have to follow through on that, which is another challenge. We look forward to seeing data at the end of the quarter, at the end of six or nine months or even one year. If we can have that, then we are on our way to becoming a more transparent real estate market which will attract more funding on a corporate level and not just from the diaspora.
From the report, how did factors such as inflation, interest rates, and government reforms influence real estate demand, supply, and pricing across key Nigerian cities in the first half of 2025?
The government is showing more concern as to the problems in the economy and again, because we know how big the problems are, and we see that they are showing some interest, it is a good thing, and we applaud that. We also see that the new tax law did give quite a number of concessions for developers, local players, real estate practitioners, things around rent, and that is something we have to appreciate the government for. When they do wrong things, I will tell you and when they do right things, i will also commend them. Now, the bad is because the economy is still not as stable, It is difficult to execute consistently high quality projects over the long-term. People need to remember that the real estate market is a 20 to 30-year market cycle.
And to be able to do that effectively, you can’t have your currency moving from what it was in October last year to what it became in February 2025. So, interest rates are affected by that, inflation also contributes to the difficulties of establishing a consistent price of inputs into the housing process. Inflation keeps accelerating, sometimes it decelerates and then you see them do a rebasing.
So, consistency in the pricing of inputs is what will kick start impact the real estate market. The other thing is the Land Use Act. I will keep saying it. I don’t want to say the Land Use Act is a joke, but it doesn’t encourage the right type of investment that a market like Nigeria needs. I want the whole thing scrapped. We need to have a team of experts come together, analyse and fashion out how we can have a new Land Use Act that will accelerate growth. Now, you need the House and the Senate to vote on dealing with it in the law, or you can get it out of Nigeria’s constitution and deal with it as an individual element. Both will take time. And I think it can happen, because if anyone told me that this Tax Law will be passed as quickly as it was passed, I wouldn’t have believed. Again, Taiwo Oyedele did a fantastic job. I knew people who were on the team. They were moving really quickly, consulting widely, and they got that done. That kind of prioritisation is what we need to see with the Land Use Act.
What are the top three mistakes first-time real estate investors make, and how can they avoid them?
I’ve met quite a wide range of investors over the years, but a few things stand out. Number one, they don’t believe there is a level of complexity to it. Some just somehow think it’s as straightforward as it’s presented. We’ve been saying this for years, but now it’s becoming normal. When you’re doing real estate transactions, you don’t even get any lawyer, you get a real estate lawyer. In fact, you get a point where you’re getting a land lawyer, a residential lawyer, a commercial real estate lawyer. We’ve been saying this for years, but most people don’t understand that there’s a level of analysis required to execute a real estate transaction. Most people just that I’ve spoken to see it as something they can just do. Once they have the money, they can call someone. The second thing is that in Nigeria, we are largely a social environment, we weigh heavy on the social, so we’re always calling a family or a friend who we know, who we had trusted on a different issue, but not property. So maybe he had helped you to buy a new car, he bought good clothes for you or he bought you a good phone. But this is land. This is a house. The third thing is the unwillingness to pay fees. You cannot. It is rare to see a large-scale transaction where fees are not paid. It’s very rare, and we have that tendency to not want to pay fees, and that also factors into how the transactions go. There are also many cases of fraud because we don’t want to work with experts. If you go into a plane, will you tell the pilot how to fly the aircraft?
What advice would you give young professionals who want to start small in real estate investment?
Just know that you’re going into a place where many people have lost money. You are not the first. So just know that one first. You’re going into a place where there are strong marketing pitches, glossy adverts and strong billboards. I have convinced people and they’ve lost billions.
So, what you want to do is to calm down and invest in due diligence. It is better that you lose an opportunity because you are doing due diligence than to think that you are saving time by moving quickly. It was the same thing I said around the Dangote Refinery area, when people were rushing to buy land. Today, Lagos State government has come out to say 176 estates are not in line with its T.H.E.M.E.S agenda, their papers are not complete, and all kinds of things.
The second thing is, you need to stay in touch with people who understand the market. There’s a reason some of us have pretty much poured our lives into these things. The third thing is, build a strong savings culture, because real estate investing when you’re starting isn’t easy, and you are going to have to invest outside the core city. So, forget Victoria Island, forget Lekki and the likes, because that’s not where you want to make mistakes. Go to Ibeju, go to Epe, go to those remote areas; go inside and learn the process. Follow a land transaction from the beginning to the end. What fees did you have to pay? What did you do around the measurement? What challenges did you find? How did you keep your receipt? You start with a test transaction, so you get used to the process. You have to approach real estate investing with caution.
Looking ahead, what strategic priorities or innovations should stakeholders expect from Northcourt in the next five years?
Five years is a long time, considering that we do quite a number of projects and programs year in, year out. For example, we have a women’s conference that they hold for women who are in development and real estate markets, architects, building construction, and contractors. It’syear done in March. We also engage students on an internship program, so that we put the right skills into them based on what they’ve learnt in school. The other thing that we do is look into the future. We are putting together more programs to deepen the level of knowledge, research, and analysis of the market. What we found out is that global markets and partners keep saying they read our reports, they are bringing in more money, they’re seeing a bit more transparency, but they are asking for more data on the sector. What you find here in Nigeria is that a lot of data companies, they give some data, but then the rest of it is paid for and that works for a certain demographic. So, they are saying that if we want to make the market truly transparent, we have to make the reports a bit more accessible. We have sponsorship, so we try to make our data, our research reports, are freely available to the market. So we’re going to be introducing more transparency tools. We’re going to be adopting a few more AI capabilities, just to ensure that our reports are more accessible. We’re also engaging international partners, because quite a number of them work with us on different fronts. More importantly, we are putting our heads down to do the work. Another thing we are doing as we go into the next five years is that we are ramping up our government engagement because now they are finding out that what we do is of value.
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