As Ibadan continues to swell in population, the daily struggle for shelter in one of Africa’s largest cities is becoming an increasingly bitter pill for many house seekers.
In the Oyo State capital, securing even a modest apartment is no longer just about paying rent; it has become a test of survival. Beyond the rent lie layers of charges—inspection, agency, agreement, caution fees, all of which often double the basic cost and leave many residents trapped in months of fruitless house-hunting.
This was the case for Precious Olusaye, an ex-corps member from Kogi State posted to Ibadan in 2024. Precious had squatted with a friend throughout her service year. Though she was ready to start a new life in the city after her mandatory one-year national youth service, the hope, however, ended in quiet disappointment.
But before her bitter decision to let go of the opportunity in Ibadan, Precious told Saturday Tribune how house-hunting for five months was marked by repeated extortion and emotional exhaustion.
“I thought Ibadan was still cheap like it used to be. But from the first week I started searching, I realised it was not just about rent anymore. Before agents even agreed to take me to see a place, I had to pay inspection fees, sometimes N5,000, sometimes more,” she said.
Understanding how desperate she was to get a place of her own, Precious recalled how agents deliberately took her to different apartments that were far below what she wanted just to collect inspection fees. “Each time they said, ‘Let’s check another place,’ it meant paying again.”
After months of searching for shelter, Precious didn’t leave Ibadan without finding a place that fit her taste, but securing it for her was a devil she was not financially ready to dare. According to her, paying just the rent would have been the easiest and pocket-friendly decision, but she must pay more, more than she expected, all in the name of a common lingo among house agents: ‘total package.’
“When I finally saw a place I liked, I was told to pay a caution fee, agency fee, agreement fee, and some other charges I can’t even remember now. Everything almost doubled the rent,” she recalled.
“I really wanted to build my life after service in Ibadan, but after everything I went through, I just couldn’t continue,” Precious added, citing experience with house agents as what forced her to abandon her plans and opportunities for a journey back to Kogi State.
Another house seeker, a serving corps member in Ibadan, who spoke to Saturday Tribune anonymously, said her experience while hunting for an apartment in Ibadan was a humiliating and emotionally draining ordeal.
According to her, despite saving N400,000, which she believed would cover the “total package” of a self-contained room apartment in her preferred location, she said encounters with agents made her feel unserious.
Just like Precious, she narrated how she continued paying for different expenses at every attempt to inspect a house, which included transport fare and inspection fee, yet none of the apartments shown to her matched what she had been promised.
Emotionally drained and financially stretched, she said the experience not only changed her perception of the city but also disrupted her service year, explaining that the inability to get her own apartment almost forced her to stop reporting for duty at her place of primary assignment as a corps member.
She said: “It was bad. Those agents are bloodsuckers. They looked me straight in the eye and said I was not ready for accommodation, even though I had N400,000 for the total package of a room self-contained apartment. Going to check the house was another expense entirely. I paid my own fare, the agent’s fare, and still had to pay an inspection fee. It was really annoying. I just gave up, forfeited my money and abandoned my search.”
For Oladokun Olayode, living closer to his workplace seemed too big a dream. While some of the apartments he was taken to were below his expectations and the standard he believed his money should conveniently afford, he was repeatedly quoted rents that later changed into much higher “total packages.”
After paying inspection fees several times and spending money on transport, Olayode said he eventually abandoned his dream place, settled for a seemingly affordable apartment in Ido Local Government Area, a remote part of the city that requires him to cough up more daily on transport to-and-fro workplace.
“To be very honest, when I was house hunting, agents showed me premium shege (sic). The first agent I met through my friend showed me a two-bedroom flat for N700,000, then turned around and said the total package was N1.3 million, almost double the rent. When I asked for a breakdown, he said there was no breakdown,” he said, narrating how another agent took him to an apartment different from what was written in the specifications that caught his attention.
“Another agent I met at New Garage showed me a two-bedroom apartment and told me all the rooms were en-suite. When we got there, I realised none of the rooms were en-suite, and the entire building had just one toilet. It was very funny.
“I paid inspection fees more than eight times, N5,000 each, roughly N40,000, aside from the stress and money spent on fuel. These people, eh… how can house rent be N600,000, and you’re calling the total package N1,050,000?”
Why ‘total package’ or nothing?
For many house seekers, the thought of a total package scare is the beginning of the fear of uncertainties. House rent could be easily preempted. Being taken, deliberately, to a house without basic amenities, just to extort inspection fees are sometimes foreseeable.
Many house seekers who spoke Tribune said budgeting with only one’s head for a moderate ‘total package’ to seal a house deal was a sin; difficult to predict.
However, house agents in Ibadan, while speaking to Saturday Tribune, said most of the fees tenants complain about are not arbitrary but tied to what they describe as long-standing industry standards and the harsh realities of Nigeria’s economy.
According to an Ibadan-based agent, who identified himself simply as Success, charges such as agency, agreement and caution fees are calculated as fixed percentages of the annual rent, which together make up what is commonly referred to as the “total package.”
He said agents do not invent these percentages but are part of accepted practice in the profession. “We charge these fees because that’s the standard of the industry. The agency, agreement and caution fees are all calculated from the rent, and that is how we arrive at the total package,” he explained.
He also defended additional charges such as inspection and registration fees, describing them as necessary to cover the hidden costs of the job. According to him, inspection fees compensate agents for the time and money spent taking multiple clients to view apartments, many of whom eventually walk away without renting.
“Imagine taking more than 10 clients out daily for inspections for free, without knowing whether any of them will finally rent the house. If we don’t charge inspection fees, the agent is the one that loses.”
Though admitted not in all cases, he said agents collecting registration and agreement fees often involve lawyers who prepare tenancy agreements and must be paid for their services, stressing that proper documentation is a critical part of securing an apartment.
Blaming the ‘total package’ practice on the worsening economy in the country, he argued that rising rents and construction costs have also pushed up agent fees. He said the high cost of building materials, transportation, data, airtime and other operational expenses now reflect in the rent landlords charge, from which all other fees are calculated.
“When the rent increases, every percentage calculated from it also increases. The current state of the Nigerian economy is not bearable for everyone, and we all try to survive from the job we do,” the agent said.
In a similar opinion, another Ibadan-based agent, Ibrahim Lawal, said tenants often overlook the financial risks agents take in the course of their work.
“People think we just collect money and do nothing, but many times we spend our own money on transport and also our time chasing deals that don’t work out. Sometimes you take a client to see five or six houses, and they still won’t rent any. Without inspection fees and commissions, we won’t survive in this economy,” Lawal stated.
For Omololu Timothy, a landlord whose property is located at Ososami, off Ansar-Ud-Deen Mosque, Oke Ado, Ibadan, handing his house over to an agent is a deliberate choice shaped by convenience, control and security concerns.
He said dealing through an agent spares him the emotional pressure that often comes with direct negotiations, where sympathy and empathy can make it difficult to enforce terms strictly.
“I speak to the agent so there is no physical conversation or emotional attachment. The agent does whatever I tell him to do,” he explained.
According to him, agents also help enforce maintenance standards and tenancy conditions, especially since he does not live on the property. “If the house is not well kept, the agent can threaten them or even issue a quit notice (sic). Tenants might not take it seriously if it comes directly from the landlord,” he said.
With agents, security and the thoughts around who not to have in one’s property are not a headache for Timothy. His agents keep records of tenants and also conduct background checks before letting his house to anyone. “If anything goes wrong, I can hold the agent responsible, and he will do proper findings because everything falls back on him,” he said.
Timothy, however, did not hold back on experience with how agents add extra charges to rent, such as agency and agreement fees, but he now has a way around it: he must be fully aware.
“I know how much they are adding, and if it is okay with me, I tell them to go ahead. It has to be fair for both parties.
“If I’m charging N200,000 per year and an agent turns everything into N380,000, that is alarming. Most landlords don’t even know this is happening. But it always comes back to the landlord. When tenants are overcharged, they end up damaging the house or resenting the property owner. Landlords should monitor how their agents deal with tenants and how much they are adding, because the damage will come back to us, not the agent,” the landlord said.
Unlike Timothy’s approach, Mrs Tumininu Olufemi, who owns a house in the Apata area of Ibadan, did not believe in handing over her property to agents to manage. She told Saturday Tribune that dealing directly with tenants is a conscious rejection of what she described as exploitative practices by agents.
“Personally, I don’t give my house to agents. They charge excessive fees that discourage people from renting. I prefer to give my house directly to the tenant,” Mrs Olufemi said.
She added that agents now attach fees to almost every step of the process, saying, “They charge money for anything, even to just go and show potential tenants a house. They will collect money,” she lamented, insisting that the practice only deepens the hardship of house seekers and complicates access to affordable housing in the city.
Amidst growing concerns and outcry, the Oyo State government appeared ready to balance the equations between house seekers and agents, especially in the state’s capital city.
Baffled by the concerns over the activities of house agents raised during a recent stakeholders’ meeting with youths, Tribune Online reported, the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Hon. Adebo Ogundoyin, announced that the Assembly was taking steps to curb what he described as extortion by house agents in the state.
Ogundoyin said the Assembly planned to set up a committee to draft a bill to regulate the activities of house agents and curb their excesses, adding that the bill is expected to be completed and presented to Governor Seyi Makinde for assent before the end of the first quarter of 2026.
The Assembly wasn’t alone; the recent signal from the state executive also communicated a government tired of how securing an apartment in the city usually leaves residents at a crossroads.
The Commissioner for Lands, Housing, and Urban Development, Hon. Akin-Funmilayo Williams, said the activities of house agents need to be regulated, noting that while the government cannot dictate what landlords charge as rent, such practices can be guided by law.
Williams made this known while speaking during a stakeholder engagement with members of the Estate Rent and Commission Agents Association, which was aimed at curbing rising cases of rent and commission extortion in the state.
He disclosed that the House of Assembly had debated a similar issue during one of its recent sittings, assuring that a law regulating the activities of estate agents would soon be enacted.
He said he decided to consult stakeholders ahead of such legislation to develop a position that could be presented to the Assembly to guide its deliberations.
According to him, this approach would ensure that any law eventually enacted would not be done in isolation but would reflect the contributions of the ministry and practitioners directly involved in the sector. He added that enforcement would only be possible when a law is in place, stressing that without a legal framework, regulation cannot take effect.
While many house seekers in Ibadan believe the activities of many agents are synonymous with extortion, some agents who spoke to Saturday Tribune argued that they are only following “industry standards.” However, a legal practitioner has described many of the fees being charged by house agents as illegal, exploitative and lacking any moral or legal justification.
Speaking with Saturday Tribune, an Ibadan-based lawyer, Mr Bayo Raji of Eleni Chambers, said multiple charges such as inspection, registration and excessive “total package” fees have no backing under existing tenancy laws. According to him, no state encourages the exploitation of tenants by agents.
“Most of these fees are not only illegal but immoral and ungodly. They are not backed by law. What the agents are doing is compounding poverty and exploiting innocent and helpless tenants,” Raji said.
On whether regulation alone can solve the problem, the legal practitioner warned that laws without enforcement amount to little or nothing. He noted that Nigeria’s free-market system has created room for agents to exploit both landlords and tenants simultaneously.
“One thing is to make laws and another thing is enforcement. Laws that are not enforceable are as good as paper tigers, if not completely useless. Ideally, landlords should deal directly with tenants to reduce tension and minimise exploitation,” he said.
Clarifying the role of lawyers in rental transactions, Raji dismissed claims that legal practitioners collect registration or agency fees, stressing that their involvement is strictly limited to documentation.
“Lawyers do not collect registration or agent fees. Our role is only to prepare tenancy agreements. It is not the duty of lawyers to act as house agents,” he said.
(Tribune)
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