Nigerians Share Their Horror House-Hunting Stories 

Finding a house is supposed to be straightforward: decide what you want, find an agent who can help you find it, and pay for it. Unfortunately, house-hunting can sometimes feel like a test of patience, finances, and blood pressure. We asked Nigerians to share some of their house-hunting experiences, and their stories expose a huge regulatory gap in Nigeria’s housing and real estate sector, and the urgent need to fill it.

Promise, 26 (F), Benin

I had just finished NYSC in 2025 and wanted to move out of my parents’ house, so I started looking for a self-contained apartment with specific features. I could message about 10 agents in a day and still get no response. When they eventually replied, the houses they showed me were not even close to what I asked for.

Some would insist they had exactly what I wanted and invite me for inspections, only for me to get there and wonder if we’d been discussing the same house. After paying inspection fees to several agents for houses I wasn’t interested in, I had spent almost ₦60,000.

Tobi*, 29 (F), Lagos

I started house hunting earlier this year and spent months at it. I paid inspection fees to at least 15 agents, between ₦10,000 and ₦20,000 each, only to be taken to houses that looked nothing like what I wanted. Sometimes, the agents didn’t even know the locations, and I’d still have to pay for their transport. Now I’m technically homeless despite paying for a house in May because the agent and developer handed me a structurally defective apartment where water pours through the walls and mould covers everything. I packed out in July, and instead of refunding me, everyone has become shady. At this point, I just want to buy my own house. 

Oladayo*, 28 (M), Oyo State 

I was relocating from Ogun State to Oyo State around June 2026, and paid an agent ₦400,000 as a commitment fee for a ₦1.2 million apartment. The agent later told me someone else had taken the house and kept promising to refund me. When I eventually visited the apartment, I found someone else living there and discovered from the landlord that the agent had never even remitted my ₦400k. For three months, the agent kept asking for my account details and promising to pay, but nothing happened. I eventually had to borrow money to rent another apartment, and he still hasn’t returned my money.

Fiyin, 26 (F), Abuja

I would explain exactly what I wanted to several agents, but they preferred to just collect inspection fees. On one occasion, I paid an agent and waited at our meeting point for more than four hours while he kept saying he was almost there. The rain beat me that day. I called him several times when I got back home, but he wasn’t answering my calls. The next day, he called and asked me to come for another inspection, claiming he had a better deal. I still went, and he showed me an apartment that I’m sure even he couldn’t choose to live in. When I asked for my money back, he said I either had to continue with the inspection or leave without a refund. He eventually walked away and left me there.

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Joseph*, 29 (M), Lagos

Houses in Lagos are ridiculously small. I once inspected a two-bedroom apartment that cost ₦2.2 million, and one of the rooms didn’t even have a window. The agent also kept taking us from one place to another without knowing where the keys were, so we’d sometimes wait for one or two hours before we could even enter a house. Most of the places were terrible, and even the roads leading to them were awful. The one week I spent doing house inspections was one of my worst weeks this year.

Olalekan, 31 (M), Oyo State 

I paid an agent an inspection fee. On the day of the inspection, he called another agent to show me around. The second agent had already shown me the same apartments, and I had already rejected them. When I asked for my money back, the new agent told me I either follow him to see the same houses again or forget about my money. That was when I decided I was done with agents. I started spending my weekends walking around the areas where I wanted to live, looking for available apartments myself and speaking directly with landlords.

Abdullah, 36 (M), Kogi

In 2025, our landlord sold the house a few weeks after I renewed my rent, and the new landlord gave us short notice to move out. I had to search for another place while also chasing the former landlord for my money. Most of the houses I found were either too expensive or came with additional charges, with some agents demanding fees and commissions that were almost half the annual rent. I kept paying inspection and transport fees without getting an apartment, and eventually, the pressure forced me to co-rent with a friend. What made everything worse was that the former landlord didn’t refund my money promptly, even though I hadn’t planned to move in the first place.