HOW TO FIND PROPERTY FOR SALE IN NIGERIA

• Visit the Nigerian real estate exchange (REX) ( http://www.2huts.com )

• From the home page, click on the “all properties for sale” link.

• In the property listing, browse and select on the property of your choice and click on the ‘contact agent/broker’ link to see the property details.

• On the property details page, click on the contact Agent\Broker button to the request to check properties page

• Fill in your contact information in the form and click the ‘ send request ‘ button

On receipt, you will be contacted by the agent ASAP.

The Philosophy

2huts.com is committed to blazing that trail to be acknowledged as the world's leading real estate search technology company. 2huts.com's goal is to provide a much higher level of service to all those who seek real estate information, whether they're at a desk in Abuja, driving through traffic in Lagos, or strolling in Dubai.

Principle Centered Company

By centering 2huts.com on correct principles, we create solid foundation for development of the four Business support factors namely; Security, wisdom, guidance and power.

Our Security comes from knowing that correct principles do not change. We can depend on them. Principles do not react to anything, they do not divorce us, and they do not depend on the behavior of others, the environment or the current trend for their validity. They are not here today and gone the next. They can not be destroyed by fire, earthquake or theft.

Principles are deep, fundamental truths, classic truths, and generic common denominators. They are tightly interwoven threads running with exactness, consistency, beauty, and strength through fabric of life.

We are limited but we can push back the borders of our limitations. An understanding of the principle of our own growth enables us to search out correct principles with the confidence that the more we learn, the more clearly we can focus the lens through which we see the world.

The wisdom and guidance that accompany principle-centered business come from correct maps, from the way things really are, have been and will be. Correct maps enable us to clearly see where we want go and how to get there just like this business plan. We can make our decisions using the correct data that will make their implementation possible and meaningful.

The main power that comes from principle-centered business is the power of a self-aware, knowledgeable, and proactive company unrestricted by attitudes, behaviors and actions of others or by many of the circumstances and environmental influences that limit other people.

The only real limitation of power is the natural consequences of the principles themselves. We are free to choose our actions, based on our knowledge of correct principles, but we are not free to choose the consequences of those actions. Remember, “If you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other.”

Main Focus: the user

2huts.com has focused on providing the best user experience possible. While many companies claim to put their customers first, few are able to resist the temptation to make small sacrifices to increase shareholder value. 2huts.com has steadfastly refused to make any change that does not offer a benefit to the users who come to the site:

• The interface is clear and simple.
• Pages load instantly.
• Automatic Record Keeping and transparency.

By always placing the interests of the user first, we believe that 2huts.com will build a platform for the most loyal audience on the internet. And that growth will come not through TV adverts, but through word of mouth from one satisfied user to another.

What is worth doing, is worth doing well

Through intensive research focused on technology driven business ideas we have been able to identify lucrative unexploited opportunities and come up with ways to solve pressing problems in the society. We know what we do well, and how we could do it even better. Our dedication to improving real estate search has also allowed us to apply what we've learned to new products and future upgrades. Our hope is to bring a great power to previously unexplored areas, and to help users access and use even more of the ever-expanding financially viable information to invest and secure their lives.

System of the people, by the people

2huts.com does not sell real estate, we simply provide a platform where the buyer and seller will meet and possibly transact. Therefore 2huts.com works because it relies on the millions of estate brokers posting information to the site where people can access and use. Instead of relying on a group of administrators, 2huts.com simply allow the market to feed itself by itself in the normal way. By allowing the market to take its course unaltered, there stand a high chance for fair trade and best market practice that establish an atmosphere of trust and credibility for business.

Turning Ideas into money

2huts.com is a business. The revenue the company generates is derived from offering its marketing technology to companies and from the sale of postings displayed on 2huts.com across the web. Substantial amount of creativity and effort was spent to convert the idea to a marketable product that solves problems. Ideas are traded, tested and put into practice with an alacrity that can be dizzying. We believe good ideas are power and worth dedicating time and effort to, can therefore be converted into money making venture that many people can benefit from.

If you are not informed, you are deformed

We strongly believe in seeking knowledge and that is why 2huts.com is designed to gather information, store and serve to and fro for its users. 2huts.com is automated to perform calculations, update records, administrative tasks and market trends monitoring to the extend that the administrator has almost nothing to do manually. It is a high performance system that is constantly fed with information and in turn constantly feeding the users. With the world rapidly growing into a global village, information plays a critical part to the growth. Our engineers turned their attention to information that was not as readily accessible. Sometimes it was just a matter of integrating new databases others require efforts that’s a bit more creative. 2huts.com's researchers continue looking into ways to bring the entire world's estate information to its users.

You can be serious without being corporate.

2huts.com’s founders have often stated that the company is not serious about anything but service. They built a company around the idea that work should be challenging and the challenge should be fun. To that end, 2huts.com's culture is unlike any in corporate Nigeria, and it's not because of the T-shirts, Jeans and sporty snickers, or the fact that the company's founder came from a university that was barely in the first 500 universities in the world. In the same way 2huts.com puts users first when it comes to our online service, 2huts.com Ltd. puts employees first when it comes to welfare and team spirit. There is an emphasis on team achievements and pride in individual accomplishments that contribute to the company's overall success. Meetings that would take hours elsewhere are frequently little more than a conversation in line for lunch and few walls separate those who write the code from those who write the checks. This highly communicative environment fosters a productivity and camaraderie fueled by the realization that millions of people rely on 2huts.com services. Give the proper tools to a group of people who like to make a difference, and they will.

Being the Best is just not enough

Always deliver more than expected. 2huts.com does not accept being the best as an endpoint, but a starting point. Through innovation and iteration, 2huts.com takes something that works well and improves upon it in unexpected ways. With a user base in the millions in the real estate industry, 2huts.com is able to identify points of friction quickly and smooth them out. 2huts.com's point of distinction however, is anticipating needs not yet articulated by our audience, then meeting them with products and services that set new standards. This constant dissatisfaction with the way things are is ultimately the driving force behind the world's first estate information exchange.

2huts.com announces the Birth of Real Estate 2.0

“Real Estate 2.0” refers to a second generation real estate profession that facilitates communication, secure information sharing and collaboration on the World Wide Web. It is more of a revolution in how business is conducted in the real estate industry through the incorporation of modern information technology much like the popular web 2.0.

Real Estate is one of the oldest businesses in the history of the world. It is an excellent way of investment for the nearer or further future; both ways have proven to be profitable anyway. It is a big industry with a lot success stories and tetra bytes of unorganized information. Market crashes is rarely or never reach to ground zero no matter how hard the bubble burst, there is always an appreciation in value. The simple fact is “Shelter is a basic necessity of life; therefore man is in constant need of it”

Real Estate 2.0 is all about incorporating information technology to the practice of the estate profession. The real estate market is a market of information sharing which is best achieved in the modern world through the World Wide Web. With the emergence of Web 2.0 as a “participatory web” as well as “information source”; Real Estate 2.0 offers the real estate industry a participatory role in the provision of information to the market using the web2.0 standards.

2huts.com provides a standard Real Estate 2.0, a platform in which commercial real estate information is served for free public access, muck like the traditional market place on the web. Estate professional from anywhere in the world can post property to the market, where the interested buyer can browse through and contact the professional to complete the transaction on the property. A system that upholds the professional ethics and conducts of the profession. The information is solely provided through the professional who serves as an intermediary between the buyer and seller of real estate.

In the light of this modern technology, there is a strong need to fully explore the opportunities to push back the boundaries of our limit, ease hardship, maximize effectiveness and efficiency and most importantly reducing cost and maximize profit.

Real Estate 2.0 is headed towards the establishment of a global real estate exchange; A market where professionals, investors, buyers and sellers can securely transact. A market where estate brokers can broker their properties on the exchange for their local, national and international customers.

About the Site

2huts.com is a web software application that provides real estate broking and marketing services to the real estate industry and the general public. The system operates as a real estate information exchange providing a platform to the estate professional to market real properties to the public thus an online real estate market. The concept is to gather and organize all the commercial real estate information (Sale/Letting/Rent/Lease) from all estate agencies on one platform for the public to access using the internet technology.

Our studies have shown that the real estate market is generally unorganized market with limited exposure to the general public. There is no definite place for buyers and sellers to find each other; the market mostly works on coincidental referrals. The interested buyer is not adequately exposed to the general free market forces in which he has alternative to choose from. There are no records of the transactions going on because of the uncontrolled nature of the market making it quite impossible to enforce the real estate laws.

Therefore, we came up with a web application that provides an organized platform where information about real estate is obtained and utilized by both parties (buyer and seller) involved and the intermediary (estate professional) through multiple market listing. The application also provides an estate brokerage platform personalized for the estate professional to market real estate on behalf of his client for the highest possible price under the best terms.

This will ease the hardship in real property acquisition, increase effectiveness and efficiency, saves time and energy thus taking the estate industry to the brink of the technology era and the realization of Nigeria’s vision 2020. Supervision and monitoring of the real estate transactions and readily available market data will be at the finger tips with a single click!

2huts.com – The Real Estate Exchange (REX)

The problem

1. The market is unorganized (quackery).

2. The economy is still underdeveloped (Plus current global recession).

3. There is no adequate power supply.

4. There is massive unemployment.

5. Cost of doing business is high.

What we can do

· Organize the market.

· Use resourcefulness and initiative.

· Manage the inadequate power supply creatively.

· Use information technology and upgrade the industry.

Then we can:

§ Boost the economy.

§ Create employment.

§ Manage and reduce cost and make more profit.

§ Increase market share and expand.

Technology

A. We are reactive than proactive.

§ Reactive: we always wait for the western world to come up with solutions to our problems.

§ Proactive: we need to use creativity and resourcefulness to provide solutions to our problems.

B. We need to change our method of doing business, change our perspective.

C. We need to be more cooperative than competitive (co-opetitive): unless we take the decision together as a “professional industry”, the impact will not be significantly effective.

“When we change one part of the chemical formula, we nature the nature of the result” And “to be committed to the change, we set goals and pursue to achieve them”

“…He who can not change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality and therefore will never make any progress.”

Late Anwar Sadat,

Former President,

Egypt.

Summary

ü Part 1: What’s happening: the trend suggest that it is going to get worst before it gets better (problem)

ü Part 2: Using technology can help manage and reducing cost and therefore increases our market share (Solution)

ü Part 3: Therefore business is better than ever (better result)

REX Technology: Real Estate 2.0

Real Estate Exchange (REX) is a combination of technologies that give rise to a new evolutional trend in real estate transaction through a web 2.0 platform. The technologies are as follows:

1. Multiple Listing Services (MLS)
2. Internet Data Exchange (IDX)
3. Virtual Office Website (VOW)


REX combines all the features of all the three technologies and some add-ons, giving the real estate brokersflexibility and control over his data. And at same being in a competitive and cooperative market.

REX is built on the concept of web 2.0 as participatory and informational platform. REX serves a market where buyers and sellers of real properties meet each other and possibly transact.

REX gives rise to now what is called REAL ESTATE 2.0: which is next generation of real estate business transaction.

Design Goals

1. Commercial Information Exchange.
REX provides an organized platform where information about real estate is obtained and utilized by both parties (buyer and seller) involved and the intermediary (estate agency) through multiple market listing.

2. Estate Brokerage.
The application should provide a personalized platform where an estate agent or broker can use to market real estate on behalf of his client and selling it for the highest possible price under the best terms through Virtual Office Website (VOW) functionality.

3. Simplified Information Retrieval and Usage.
Another important goal was to build systems that reasonable numbers of people can actually use. Usage was important because some of the most important real property search will involve leveraging the vast amount of usage data. The information retrieved should be in a few simple steps and fast.

4. Transaction and Cash Flow Documentation.
The REX system was design to keep record of transactions and cash flow of the market. With full implementation, it is possible to monitor all transactions in the market any time any day and to know who buy what, from whom, at what price and date. It is also possible to know the total worth of real estate transacted in a particular period of time and total cash flow of the market including the commission earned by the brokers.

5. Improved and Easy Real Asset Acquisition.
REX incorporates internet technology in the real estate industry so as to make the real asset acquisition easy by sophisticating and enhancing the usual procedures the buyer usually follow to acquire real estate. REX technology can improve dramatically the professional ethics and transparency of the industry. Thus, making it a world class safe heaven for investment and employment opportunities.

Multiple Listing Service

A Multiple Listing Service (MLS) (also Multiple Listing System) is a suite of services that
(1) Enables brokers to establish contractual offers of compensation (among brokers);
(2) Facilitates cooperation with other broker participants;
(3) Accumulates and disseminates information to enable appraisals (Valuation);
(4) Is a facility for the orderly correlation and dissemination of property listing information to better serve broker's clients, customers and the public.

A multiple listing service's database and software is used by real estate brokers representing sellers under a listing contract to widely share information about properties with real estate brokers who may represent potential buyers or wish to cooperate with a seller's broker in finding a buyer for the property. The listing data stored in a multiple listing service's database is the proprietary information of the broker who has obtained a listing agreement with a property's seller.
The primary purpose of the MLS is to provide a facility to publish a "unilateral offer of compensation" by a listing broker, to other broker participants in that MLS. In other words, the commission rate that is offered by the listing broker is published within the MLS to other cooperating brokers. This offer of compensation is considered a contractual obligation; however it can be negotiated between the listing broker and the broker representing the buyer. Since the commission for a transaction as well as the property features are contained in the MLS system, it is in the best interests of the broker participants (and thereby the public) to maintain accurate and timely data.

The additional benefit of the MLS system is that an MLS subscriber may search the MLS system and retrieve information about all homes for sale by all participating brokers. MLS systems contain hundreds of fields of information about the features of a property. These fields are determined by real estate professionals who are knowledgeable and experienced in that local marketplace, whereas public real estate websites contain only a small subset of property data.
MLS systems set their own rules for membership, access, and sharing of information, but are subject to nationwide rules laid down by Real Estate Professional Association. An MLS may be owned and operated by a real estate company, a county or regional real estate board of realtors or association of realtors, or by a trade association. Membership of the MLS is generally considered to be essential to the practice of real estate brokerage.

Limitations of access to the MLS
Most MLS systems restrict membership and access to real estate brokers (and their agents) who are appropriately licensed by the state (or province); are members of a local board or association of realtors; and are members of the trade association (e.g., NIESV). However, access is becoming more open as internet sites offer the public the ability to view portions of MLS listings.

A person selling his/her own property - acting as a For Sale By Owner (or FSBO) - cannot put a listing for the home directly into the MLS. Similarly, a properly licensed broker who chooses to neither join the trade association nor operate a business within the association's rules cannot join the MLS.

However, there are brokers and many online services which offer FSBO sellers the option of listing their property in their local MLS database by paying a flat fee or another non-traditional compensation method.

Origin of the MLS

According to the National Association of REALTORS (USA):
“In the late 1800s, real estate brokers regularly gathered at the offices of their local associations to share information about properties they were trying to sell. They agreed to compensate other brokers who helped sell those properties, and the first MLS was born, based on a fundamental principal that's unique to organized real estate: Help me sell my inventory and I'll help you sell yours.”

MLS systems worldwide

Although many countries are lacking regulations regarding real estate transactions, lately there are attempts to align with those in developed markets. A special case may be Italy which is developing the first international MLS. Its multilingual interface, which translates property details and all the web pages instantly and automatically into 8 languages, allows estate agents to share their property listings with other estate agents around the world. The platform links over 1000 real estate agents and over 40000 offers from 16 countries worldwide.
Real estate agents pay subscription fees to an MLS company which then allows property listings to be uploaded onto their servers. Also, all subscribing real estate agents create a property search link on their own websites which links directly to the MLS service. Thus, any site visitor to any of the subscribing agents' sites will be able to find all properties listed on the MLS servers, even though they are visiting the website of a single agent. In effect, every single subscribing real estate agent appears to be offering exactly the same properties for sale.
When buyers use the internet to find property, often using Google, the search results usually provide a list of real estate agents’ websites in the locality which is being searched. The buyer clicks through the various websites and starts browsing properties of interest, although every site visited is offering the same properties because they are all linked to the same MLS server.
The buyer then has to choose an agent (again, not very different from elsewhere), but it does force the buyer to make a decision, since all agents in the area have access to all properties and the seller's agent will benefit regardless of who brings the buyer.
Although there are currently no regulations in Europe in relation to MLS, it may be a matter of time before its use may be viewed as a restrictive practice designed to benefit real estate agents, rather than consumers.

Internet Data Exchange

An Internet Data Exchange (IDX) is a real estate property search site which allows the public to conduct searches of approved Multiple Listing Service properties in a certain area.
Site users generally gain the benefit of anonymous property searching and review. IDX sites usually provide less detailed information than the full Realtor Multiple Listing Service, limiting the data to that which is deemed publicly accessible. This system benefits both parties. The benefit to broker (realtors) is that users of their IDX web site can search freely, establish some confidence, and qualify themselves before contacting the realtor(broker). The benefits to clients are to save time and refine his target.
Certain rules apply to the real estate companies' ability to display each detail about a property. These "display rules" are set by the Multiple Listing Service organization, which generally forms its policy around the recommendations of the National Association of Real Estate Professionals.
A common and standard data exchange protocol for IDX information is the Real Estate Transaction Specification or RETS.


Virtual Office Website

A Virtual Office Website (VOW) is a web site that is used to conduct business activities. One example is a VOW used as a real estate property search site allowing the public to conduct searches of approved Multiple Listing Service properties in a given area under certain conditions.

Features

The VOW allows the public to:
1. provide contact information
2. agree to become a bona fide customer / client
3. get a password protected private account
4. describe property interest(s)
5. And then conduct searches of all available Multiple Listing Service properties in a certain area.

Site users have to provide personal information before they can actually look at the listings. Also, Realtors (Real Estate professional) who use VOW can choose to “opt out” from the local Multiple Listing Service, which means that these Realtors’ properties will only be displayed to people who have signed in with the VOW.
The benefit to Realtors (Real estate Professional) is that registered users of their VOW web site become customers under contract. Registered users gain the benefit of more detailed information about each property and can generally see all available properties.

Regulation

Certain rules apply to the real estate companies ability to display each detail about a property, these "display rules" are set by the Multiple Listing Service which generally forms policy around the recommendations of the National Association of REALTORS(Real Estate Professionals).

Real estate trends

Real estate trends is a generic term used to describe any consistent pattern or change in the general direction of the real estate industry which, over the course of time, causes a statistically noticeable change. This phenomenon can be a result of the economy, a change in mortgage rates, consumer speculations, or other fundamental and non-fundamental reasons.

A real estate trend is the catalyst for the change, and it is usually a concept, a belief, a philosophy, or an event. Sometimes a real estate trend evolves to meet a specific need, while others evolve when new products or solutions are launched. For example, when more lenders began offering creative financing products, more borrowers were able to afford a mortgage (at least on paper). At other times, a trend from another industry spills over into the real estate industry and is adopted.
Therefore, a trend must have substance and be based on fact. Over time, it will cause pattern of change. Monitoring changes and tracking trends is a not an exact science and can be very hard to predict.

WEB 2.0: Definition

"Web 2.0" refers to a second generation of web development and design, that facilitates communication, secure information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration on the World Wide Web. Web 2.0 concepts have led to the development and evolution of web-based communities, hosted services, and applications such as social-networking sites, video-sharing sites, wikis, blogs, mashup and folksonomies.


Visit: 2huts.com-The World's 1^st Real Estate Exchange.