By Babajide Komolafe

Buy land with valid documentation. It is better and cheaper in the long run to buy land that already has all the necessary documents including C of O than to buy the land and pursue the documentation by yourself.
Minimise risk of ‘Omo Onile’ where possible. Buying land from ‘Omo Onile’ is a very risky business.

If you must buy from them, you must be ready to obtain all required documents and commence development immediately. It goes without saying that you should involve a lawyer in the transaction to help negotiate whatever levy you need to pay the Omo Oniles through the phase of developing the land. If you buy land from Omo Onile and you leave the land undeveloped, they may sell the same land to another person. Land grabbers may even acquire the land.

Regaining your land may involve prolonged legal battle and associated cost which may be more than the money invested in the land.
Don’t depend on real estate investment for cashflow. You need regular income, cashflow to meet your needs, which can be unpredictable especially if you are at the early stage of your wealth building journey or working life. At this phase, your priority and focus should be on investments that yield regular income, which you can also easily liquidate either to supplement your regular income or to meet demand for money due to unforeseen circumstances. Investment in real estate, especially buying a land does not offer you that cashflow opportunity.
Thus, the right approach, especially for a beginner, is to use investments like mutual funds, stock market, treasury bills to first build savings that can cover your living expenses for more than one year. Another option is to use your savings to start a business. Build the business to generate income that can cover your living expenses for more than one year. After achieving that, you can build savings towards buying a land property for the purpose of reselling or development in two to five years.
It may take you two to three years to achieve both objectives depending on your income and monthly savings. But by the time you allocate funds to invest in the land, you have savings/investment that can protect you and your family from sudden loss of income or unforeseen demand for money.
Buying a house offers quicker returns. This allows you to minimise or eliminate the stress, time, government approval required to build a house. You can even obtain a loan to buy a property, restructure and renovate it and resell at huge margins. In the long term, this is more profitable than buying land, with the aim of earning income through annual rent from tenants.