Multiple sources have informed JollofNews that some homes, underdeveloped and undeveloped lands at Jabang Estate have begun to lose value as they remain watertight.
The land rush in Jabang in the early 2000s had resulted to massive increase in land values.
As recently as early 2022, a 20 by 20 land mass at Jabang Estate fetched a little over a million Dalasi but investors are now said to be thinking twice.
Currently, many residents of the estate are struggling to recover from the psychological, economic and financial ramifications of the last year’s destructive floods in the area.
Homes remain flooded, families uprooted and those left behind are still fighting to recover.
In a chat, community representative Nuha S. Barrow told this writer that he knew a land owner, who wanted to dispose his land of at D750,000 as opposed to its earlier market value of D1.5m.
To Mr. Barrow, land values could dip if water continues to be denied its natural path.
“The estate needs waterways,” he said as he underlined the urgency for the construction of water pathways at Jabang Estate.
A land owner Musa Jobe, domiciling in Germany, told JollofNews that he’d resigned to the fact that his land at Jabang Estate must be sold below its previous market value.
“The entire land is still under water. And, I don’t see the readiness on the part of the authorities to deal with it any time soon,” he told JollofNews.
A real estate professional told this medium that unless robust measures are taken against the area’s proneness to flash floods, property values risk plummeting in the few years to come.
“Ideally, people would love to live on dry grounds. So if their homes remain susceptible to flooding, they’d rather sold off their property to find higher grounds,” he added.
Meanwhile apart from it’s firefighting response to the floods, authorities have seemingly pushed the Jabang Estate’s flood conundrum to the bottom of the agenda.
The community’s central mosque, homes and several pockets are still waterlogged.
