SUSTAINABLE PROPERTY MANAGEMENT PRACTICE IN NIGERIA

This paper examines the degree of preparedness of the Nigerian estate surveyors and valuers to sustainable property management practice in response to the challenges and benefits of the practice in advanced countries. Using an instrument designed to elicit factual data and opinion from a sample of practicing estate surveyors and valuers in Lagos, the study indicates that sustainable property management practice is of little priority in the activities of real estate practitioners as the concept is still new to them. Many of the practitioners, though graduate of a university or polytechnic, were not trained in the science of green building and neither has the professional institution taken any step to train them. The industry has still not developed an adequate response to sustainability due to profitability-oriented focused practice. The consequence is over concentration of activities and efforts on estate agency, leaving the property management arm not globally competitive. The paper suggests an overhauling of university/polytechnic curriculum in response to global trends and the retraining of practitioners to meet emerging challenges in sustainable property management.