#MyFirstHouse – ‘My Wife And I Had To Live In Between Houses’ – Mr. Oranye

Mr. Jimmy Oranye’s first house story goes a long way to show that sometimes, a little discomfort should be endured to achieve the greater goal. In a chat with Elsie Godwin, Mr. Oranye reveals he had to live in between houses with his wife for some period of time in order to have his first house.

Mr. Oranye, who is the Managing Director of Rosan Plus is currently developing other properties and advised taking the first step as no time is really the right time.

Read excerpt below:

When was your house completed?

My house was completed in the year 2012. We’ve been living in our house for 4years

How long did that take?

It took a while. But it didn’t seem so bad because I had the support of my wife at the time. Funny enough, after we got married in 2009, because of what we do which is interior, a year later, I was renewing the rent and she felt that I was investing too much in a property which was not ours and that no matter what you do to someone’s house, they were not going to reduce the rent for you. She suggested we build ours. She knew we had land somewhere in Festac and she wasn’t going to encourage us to pay rent again. We started, a block a day while we were already approaching the tenure of the rent, we had about 6months and it was not that we had cash kept aside for this. So when the rent expired, since she had said we were not going to pay rent anymore and we had started the house, we left because she said the money could be used to add to the ongoing construction. We were actually staying in between houses, shared a room somewhere, and had our furniture somewhere. Thinking about it now, it was an uncomfortable period but it didn’t seem so because we were together on the same page but every other day, the house was being built. Thinking of it now, if I had known we were going to be doing all that, I probably wouldn’t have started but because she was supportive, here we are, living in our own house.

And how long did it take to complete the building?

About a year. When we moved in, we hadn’t painted the outside, we had just done the inside. Inside was properly finished. And you know how it is, every day, you have somebody come, permit for this, permit for roofing, permit for that.\

What was your experience with the Omoniles and Artisans?

Where we built was a developed environment so we didn’t have the omonile problem. The problem we had was from supposed government agencies. They will give you specifications, you do your drawing, they approve the specifications and when you gone half way they come back to say the specification is wrong. So we were going back and forth. To do the finishing, we needed another specification, they had come to mark the house, mark the fence but we finally got around it.

What advice do you have for anyone who will want to start? Will you advise they just start or save up for it? Would you have done it if you were waiting for the right time?

There is never really a right time unless you have loads of money somewhere in the bank. When you are building, there are always unforeseen challenges, unforeseen problems. We are actually on our second property now at Ajah – a block of flat but work has stopped there for almost a month. We were on roofing case, Omonile, court case, family this, it’s a nightmare. First things first, if you want to build, make sure you have your title/documents intact because it will throw you off balance half way when this omonile people come. I will say that living in your own property is always the best if you can afford it and I don’t think one should wait till he has all the whole money, he should do it, open and account for it, use every careless funds and trust me you will be surprised what you will achieve. Just start! But you must do proper planning and if you can avoid omonile avoid them.

Any advice on how to avoid them (Omonile)?

For me, I have always liked to live within estate because of my children, some form of secured living where they can ride bicycle and play without being carried away. I like to live in structured environment. I think that if possible, they should key into estates like offer from real estate firms like Realty Point Limited or do proper documentation.