Short-let apartments are attracting growing interest from investors in Nigeria’s real estate market due to annual returns of around 15% and the ability to recover capital within about eight years, according to the co-founders of Edala Development.
Temidayo Oloyede, Co-Founder and CEO, and Samuel Olatunde, Co-Founder and COO, shared these insights in an exclusive interview with Nairametrics, noting that short-lets are particularly appealing for their flexibility and resale potential when professionally managed in high-demand areas.
With a portfolio covering short-let apartments, landbanking, and resort developments, Edala Development manages over N10 billion in assets across residential, lifestyle, hospitality, and commercial properties in Lagos and Oyo State, giving the co-founders strong market insight.
In the interview, they also examined financing constraints, the operational realities of running short-let apartments, diversification into mixed-use and resort projects, and how professionally managed short-lets could shape Nigeria’s housing market in the years ahead.
Nairametrics: What makes short-let apartments an attractive option for investors in Lagos, and how has this trend evolved?
Temidayo Oloyede: Short-let apartments deliver some of the highest yields across real estate asset classes—higher than traditional residential and, in many cases, commercial real estate.
When an apartment is acquired in the right location and managed professionally, investors can realistically recover their capital within about eight years.
Short-lets offer annual returns of around 15%, while also providing the option to resell the asset at a profit in the future. Over the years, this combination of cash flow and capital appreciation has driven rapid growth in the segment.
Nairametrics: When developing short-let apartments, what guides your decisions on design and positioning?
Temidayo Oloyede: Three key factors drive our decisions:
- Location
- Experience and unique features
- Market demand
We design each project to stand out within its micro-market while remaining commercially viable and operationally efficient.
Nairametrics: Running short-let apartments as a business requires operational efficiency and attention to detail. How have you structured management and operations to ensure these properties deliver sustainable returns?
Samuel Olatunde: We treat short-let apartments as operating businesses, not passive real estate. From day one, we separated ownership from operations by building a dedicated management structure under Lodge and Loft by Edala.
Key things we focus on:
- Centralised booking, pricing, and calendar management
- Strict cost control on utilities, cleaning, and maintenance
- Standardised furnishing and unit layouts to reduce replacement costs
- Data-driven pricing that prioritises occupancy over vanity nightly rates
Most importantly, we design the apartments with operations in mind. Power reliability, water systems, durability of finishes, and ease of maintenance all affect long-term returns more than aesthetics.
Nairametrics: Lagos and other major cities face a shortage of residential housing. How do you see the rise of short-let apartments affecting the availability of traditional residential units?
Temidayo Oloyede: Capital naturally flows to areas with the highest yield. When you look at the level of investment that has gone into short-let apartments, it’s clear that if those attractive yields didn’t exist, that capital wouldn’t have gone into residential real estate at all—it would have moved to entirely different asset classes with better returns.
From that perspective, short-lets are actually a net positive for the real estate market. Importantly, investors who buy short-let properties in poor locations or operate them with weak management often end up converting those units back to traditional residential use. That process ultimately increases residential supply and helps balance the market.
Nairametrics: Financing real estate projects often requires attracting the right investors. From your experience, how do you raise capital for developments?
Temidayo Oloyede: At the institutional level, real estate financing is still relatively limited, while capital from private investors tends to come at a high cost. Because of this, we focus heavily on creative deal structuring.
Our approach prioritizes strong project fundamentals, clear execution plans, and solid off-plan sales strategies. By de-risking projects early and aligning incentives properly, we’re able to attract capital even in a challenging financing environment.
Nairametrics: Land prices in areas like Yaba can be high. How do you approach land acquisition to secure sites in a way that is both cost-efficient and viable for development?
Samuel Olatunde: We accept early that places like Yaba are not cheap, and trying to buy cheap land in a premium demand corridor usually leads to compromise later. Our approach starts with unit economics, not land price in isolation.
We work backwards from what the market can realistically absorb in rent or sales, then determine the maximum land price that still allows the project to make sense. If the numbers do not work, we walk away.
We also focus on:
- Underutilised plots rather than headline locations
- Sellers who value speed and certainty over absolute price
- Structuring payments creatively to reduce upfront pressure
- Smaller but highly efficient sites where density and design do the heavy lifting
In high-demand areas, land is expensive for a reason. The key is not avoiding cost, but ensuring the land supports a product that can outperform its price.
Nairametrics: With projects that include resorts and mixed-use developments, what opportunities and challenges have you encountered in diversifying beyond traditional residential apartments?
Samuel Olatunde: Diversifying into resorts and mixed-use projects opens up entirely different demand profiles.
The opportunity is clear. You are no longer limited to residential demand alone. You tap into leisure, events, tourism, retreats, and experiential spending, which is growing across Nigeria.
However, the challenges are real. Unlike residential apartments, these projects require:
- Longer gestation periods
- Higher upfront infrastructure investment
- More complex operations and staffing
- Stronger branding and experience design
What we have learned is that mixed-use and resort developments only work when location, concept, and execution are tightly aligned. You cannot force them.
When done right, they diversify income streams and reduce reliance on pure residential cycles. When done poorly, they become capital-intensive distractions.
Nairametrics: Looking ahead, how do you think the growth of professionally managed short-let apartments will shape Lagos’ housing supply, affordability, and overall real estate market in the coming years?
Samuel Olatunde: Professionally managed short lets will become a core part of Lagos’ housing ecosystem, not a niche.
As mobility increases and household formation continues to be delayed, more people will choose flexibility over long-term leases. This will increase demand for well-located, efficiently managed apartments.
However, this will also put pressure on affordability in high-demand areas if supply does not expand accordingly.
What we expect to see is:
- More purpose-built rental and short-let developments
- Clear separation between informal Airbnbs and professional operators
- Better regulation and higher standards
- More data-driven pricing and yield-focused development
In the long run, professionally managed short-lets will push the market towards better quality housing, stronger management, and more institutional thinking across the sector.
