Ee de beru olohun… 
When I first heard about fibre.ng, I thought they would bd solving the problem of startup founders. Not high income earners only. Not that there’s anything wrong with it now, but you have to agree that they’re catering to only a minute selection of professionals.
Even if you worked at AIG, how many people at AIG earn 500-600k a month?
A serviced apartment 1 bedroom flat is about 1m in Agungi, Lekki including all the charges. I know because we got one for our cofounder. We looked at fibre first, it’s just not cost effective. Not in the way most people would want.
Abeg how do I apply as one of your co-founder? 
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Abeg, na per month or per year 
Lekki na Beverly Hills?
thats just funny
I’m assuming Fibre doesn’t own most/any of these properties. They rely on homeowners and landlords to provide rooms for their prospective customers.
How many landlords/homeowners who cater to the middle class are willing to take monthly payments? Few to none. Even when given a good incentive (for ex. 10% extra return + deposit), these landlords will rather take the less risky common approach of demanding 1 year payment beforehand. That’s the big challenge Fibre has to overcome to target the middle class. For this to even work, the homeowners/landlords have to be given a mighty good incentive, which mostly equates to overpriced rooms anyways.
Hence, the problem that needs a solution is: How do we make landlords find monthly payments attractive while providing affordable housing to the middle class and common man?
Great question.
But my point still remains. A mini flat in Yaba is about 450-500 unserviced, with total charges.
With charges, I wouldn’t mind it going up to 800.
But millions for a one bed? Ridiculous. For me.
But now the 5% they can appeal to, do those ones want mini flats? Yaba is mostly startup founders. Only fair to bring startup founders centric housing, no?
I agree. It’s more like they just thought:
Founder A: Hey, let’s fix housing problems for the hustlers.
Founder B: Yeah that’d be great, but you know what would be greater?
Founder A: What?
Founder B: Screwing them over and offering the solution to richer folks that don’t even have that problem.
But honestly, why can’t monthly rent be enforced in a place like Yaba? I think we can all agree that it’s one of the most vibrant community in terms of budding millennials, entrepreneurs, freelancers etc.
This is what lawmakers are for. To protect and pursue the interests of their people.
@OdunEweniyi I agree with you, it’s very pricey. According to their website, they offer rooms in Lekki too, so they might just be testing the market in Yaba for now. 800K like you said seems to be OK if all inclusive.
If you view it this way: 800K + Fibre profit + landlord’s incentive + risk mitigation/insurance = 1 million. Then it begins to make a little sense 
@Yinka Haba! How are they screwing anyone over, and who said rich folks don’t have that problem? Like I noted earlier, you can’t blame FIbre because I know it’s challenging to negotiate affordable prices with landlords who are not willing to take risks. We need to look at the problem from both sides.
Now how many landlords in Yaba built their properties on mortgages? Very few.
How many rich folks/landlord build their properties with mortgages? More than Yaba. As a result, Fibre is more marketable to them.
The monthly payment system stems from societies that give mortgages to homeowners. As a result, it doesn’t make sense for our gov to enforce monthly payments, however it’s fair to call on them to ban landlords who require 2 years payments upfront. Let’s even say the gov does enforce monthly payments, the landlords will increase their prices like MAD, and people will start begging to have the old system back. Be careful what you wish for 
I still prefer a laissez faire approch, with gov interference when necessary.
Lol, don’t mind me, I was just purposely painting a less than accurate mental picture.
Now I’m no expert on this, so keep that in mind when responding.
Are you saying all those property developers that build apartment complexes in India and other countries take out mortgages? I don’t think it’s about access to mortgage but the mindset of the landlords. Fibre is (correct me if I’m wrong) trying very very hard getting the same’ol landlords to change their mindset. But if a property developer that is already used to monthly rents or selling to landlords that sublet to tenants comes into the market, I bet they’d be more competitive.
First our One Bs in Lekki Phase one are affordable too… 
Second, if you want to grow as a business and startup founders are your initial target market - you face an uphill battle. It’ll get to startup founders don’t worry…
Finally, I am just going to leave this here : https://www.teslamotors.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-just-between-you-and-me?redirect=no
Imagine the (secret) plan is
Rent luxury apartments to well paid people who want to pay monthly (because they understand money)
Use that money to lease buildings for everyone else who wants to pay monthly
Everyone pays monthly
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Bro your entitlement is showing…
Better lose it if you want to be successful in life. Fibre doesn’t have an obligation to serve startup founders. It is a business not an incubator…
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Yes, most likely. These countries we try to emulate work on credit and debt oooo, so let’s be fair to Nigeria.
For example, there are property developers in Nigeria that have like 2 or 3 year plans to own a house. If you want to buy the house in 2/3 years with installment payments, you will be paying up to 25-35% the actual cost of the house compared to buying it outright. Same concept of mortgage.
Fibre are not property developers, there are more like property managers, so they don’t have too much control over the price. Monthly sublets in good areas in Nigeria are expensive nevertheless. It’s not Fibre’s fault.
I’m afraid you’ve assumed wrongly. Maybe you missed the part where I said I was just being jestful. And I never mentioned startup founders.
I think it’s obvious a lot of people hoped Fibre would be more affordable than it currently is.
Apart from my fictional dialogue, my comment was more about solving the problem some other way. Through new laws to be precise.
Maybe you replied wrongly, because the reply above mine had “startup founders” in there.
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But it’s not like property developers don’t have access to housing loans in Nigeria. And many landlords in Nigeria built their properties comfortably and wouldn’t have jumped at mortgages.
So whether or not they got mortgages isn’t the issue, we just had that culture from day one and now it’s hard to shake. If tenants had access to single digit loans to pay their rent, they wouldn’t even consider Fibre.
Like many people have pointed out, if you have the money to pay for a year, you’re better off not using Fibre. If tenants have access to single digit loans to pay rent, they wouldn’t even consider Fibre.
Landlords have gotten used to annual rent, but they’d be forced to change if a new crop of landlords start offering monthly options at a competitive rate.
Let’s sit down and complain about landlords for the next 20 years. Without a fibre nothing will change…
Which is why I find all the criticism of fibre amusing…
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Well, all hustle na hustle. fibre has a business plan. I would like to believe they have their projections and estimated revenue streams.
In other news, It will be nice if we can have local startups that will cater to the great horde(99% of Nigerians)
e.g. Service men are dealing with me in the island. It would be nice if I can locate many of them on a single platform, compare pricing, look at reviews etc. No, I don’t mean just a platform(apps + website), anybody can come up with that. I am talking about the ground work necessary to populate, run and maintain the platform,
Anyway, I digress. Apologies.