EPISODE SUMMARY:
This episode discusses Nigeria’s rebased GDP, highlighting the real estate sector’s rise as a key economic driver while addressing its challenges, financing models, regulatory reforms, and future outlook of the Nigerian real
estate sector.

Dr. Oluwanbepelumi Olanubi: Hello everyone. Welcome to another insightful episode of the Kingsgate Brief. This is the official podcast series of the Kingsgate Advisors Institute. As you know, this is one of our platforms that brings global leaders, professionals, professors, and people who are actually veterans in their fields to discuss with us some of the burning, major, and global issues that are happening, economic-related, politics-related, real estate, and climate change, just naming a few. We come here to discuss and give you an expert view and provide actionable solutions that will improve your own decision-making as an individual, an institution, or even as an economy as a whole. So, thank you for joining us again today, and today’s episode promises to be very rich and insightful as usual.

My name is Oluwanbepelumi Olanubi. I’m currently the Executive Director of the Institute, and today I’m also your host. Now, in this episode, we are going to be talking about something very critical and something very important. Given the event of the GDP rebasing done by the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), we saw a major shift in terms of sectors that contribute the largest to the GDP. Before I go on into the conversation, I want to take this moment to invite you, if you haven’t already, to subscribe to our YouTube page, the Kingsgate Advisors Institute. Subscribe, like, follow us, and even turn on the notification bell so that you’ll be the first to be informed when we drop another insightful podcast series or major discussion that we have on this platform. You can also follow us on other social media platforms. We are very active on LinkedIn; just search Kingsgate Advisors Institute, and check Instagram; we’re on Instagram. To have a deeper dive into what we do within the Institute and to understand how we operate, you can just visit our website, where you’ll have a full glimpse of all the things we do within the organisation. Thank you for doing that.

All right, in today’s episode, as I was saying, we turn to one of the most surprising outcomes of Nigeria’s 2025 GDP revision. Nigeria, as we all know, recently rebased its GDP, updating the base year to 2019 to reflect more current data and structural shifts in the economy. One of the most striking outcomes was the rise of the real estate sector as the third largest contributor to GDP. Surprising, right? Accounting for more than 10% of national output and overtaking the likes of oil and gas when it comes to the contribution to GDP. This signals a profound change in not just the narrative of the Nigerian economy, but also exposes the sector and shows that a sector which was once perceived as a secondary sector is now one of the core and major drivers of the national output. This new ranking unites both the scaled and untapped potential of the sector.

Real estate is not just about luxury development or high-value properties. It spans across rentals, brokerage, housing services, and construction, all of which are now better captured in this new accounting framework. Yet behind the numbers lies a sector that can be described as one facing deep-seated challenges. According to data, the sector still accounts for over 28 million housing unit deficits. The mortgage penetration is still very low, accounting for one per cent or less. It has a weak financing structure and degenerate bottlenecks when it comes to regulations within the sector. These are what are important to discuss and to have a deep dive into what is really happening
within the real estate sector in Nigeria.

Now, these realities also raise critical questions about how Nigeria can leverage this sector as an engine for inclusive and sustainable growth. Can financing innovation bridge the gap when it comes to the affordability of houses? Can regulations and the regulatory body be reformed in a way that allows investments to flow in? Can technology be leveraged to see how we can leverage digital platforms, even within the sector and unlock a lot of potential within the sector? Also, what kind of risks does the sector actually have to face in the short term, medium term, and even in the long run, and how does all this affect the Nigerian economy?

To explore and to discuss this, I have today a guest who is quite personal to me. She’s a thought leader. She has a decade of experience in this sector, and she’s part of our Board of Directors. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Tomilola Bisileko.

Tomilola Bisileko, an edge expert, Assocrics corporate real estate strategist, and member of the board of directors of Kingsgate. 

Tomilola Bisileko is a seasoned corporate real estate strategist with over a decade of diverse experience in brokerage, property development, lease and facilities management, asset management, and portfolio optimisation. She currently serves as Transaction Manager at Trillium Real Estate Partners Limited, the Nigerian affiliate of global Fortune 500 company Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), where she supports multinational and global clients in achieving real estate efficiency, growth, and sustainability.

Her career began at Ubosi Eleh & Co., and later Estate Links Limited, where she managed real estate portfolios and was active in brokerage and client advisory. She went on to WestFoster Development Company (Cadwell Limited), where she served as Head of Business Development and Research and Technical Assistant to the Group Chairman, playing key roles in business strategy and leadership support.

Tomilola is also the founder of Bellwether Limited, a growing venture that reflects her entrepreneurial drive and passion for delivering innovative, client-centred real estate solutions. A graduate of Obafemi Awolowo University with a degree in Estate Management, she is an Associate of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and an EDGE Expert, reflecting her commitment to green, environmentally responsible development.

Actively involved in industry advancement, Tomilola currently serves as the Assistant Publicity Secretary for the RICS Nigeria Group. She is also deeply passionate about community impact and development. In 2021, she founded the Heralding Hope Initiative, a non-governmental organisation focused on lifting people out of deprivation and promoting sustainable community development. She also volunteers with the Awesome Treasures Foundation.

Tomilola is recognised for her exceptional strategic thinking, communication, research, and business development skills, as well as a passion for promoting ethical leadership and driving sustainable growth.

Good evening, Tomilola, and thanks for joining me today. I’m so pleased to have you.

Tomilola Lawal: Good evening, thank you so much for that resounding welcome. I’d say it’s a delight and a pleasure to be here. Thank you to the Kingsgate family.

Dr OluwanbePelumi Olanubi: Thank you so much for that. To our viewers, this episode will unpack interesting issues, such as why real estate surged after the rebasing, and what it means for the Nigerian economic structure. We’ll also look at how financing models can actually unlock growth within the sector and address an affordability challenge, which has been a long-standing challenge in the sector. We’ll turn to discuss issues related to reforms, like inflation, subsidy removal, the impact on inflation, effects, volatility, regulations within the sector, and how it has weighed on the sector’s performance. We’ll look at the role of innovation and pro-tech approaches in transforming housing and land administration, generally in urban planning. And also, we have a take-home, the outlook of what the sector will look like in the next decade, say 2035. Whether you’re a policymaker, an investor, a developer, or just curious about the Nigerian economy and how it’s shaping and growing, this episode definitely provides a deep insight into all these issues and the country’s most dynamic and consequential sector, which is real estate.

Tomilola, I’m going to start from literally the beginning, with what the current state of the sector looks like. After the GDP rebasing, real estate has emerged as one of the top three sectors contributing to Nigeria’s GDP. What does this reveal about the size and the importance of the sector? Is the sector getting that much attention as it should? And is it actually overrated, or is it a sector that we have not really paid much attention to? What do you think about it?

Tomilola Lawal: Thank you. The truth is, what just happened is something that should have happened a long time ago, because it appears we’ve focused on particular aspects of the sector while undermining others. Real estate is broad, and it is fundamental. Fundamental in the sense that it is also tied to
its importance. Real estate is one of the most important things that man needs. Basically, you’d say you need food and shelter, and it counts as one of the top three. There is no area of life that shelter doesn’t tie into.

When you look at real estate, you’re talking about where you’re living, where you’re coming to work every day, and it could be a shop, an office, or it could be where you’re transacting, basically. You need shelter for all of that. I know some people say e-commerce, but whatever goods or services you’re offering, it’s going to be from somewhere, a place, and it’s real estate. There are many arms and diverse paths to real estate that we’ve sort of overlooked over time.
There’s been a lot of focus on high-end, middle-income housing and residences. But there are these commercial paths, retail paths, industrialisation, e-commerce, and all sorts of things coming up. Not coming up, it’s always been there, but it’s just that a lot of attention hasn’t been given to it over time. But especially with the industrialisation and e-commerce, which got a lot of attention post-COVID or during the COVID era, it shows us how diverse real estate actually is. Shortlets, serviced offices, serviced apartments, and healthcare, even where your children are schooling and all sorts, you look at facilities management, property management, you’ll see that it’s a very diverse and broad sector. And I’m happy with this rebasing because it shows that the government is paying attention to what they need to pay attention to. They are beginning to give adequate importance and place to real estate and the many diverse areas that it involves, as opposed to just focusing on housing. And I’m not saying housing should be overlooked, but it’s just that it underscores the fact that real estate is broad and plays a major role in the economy.