Lagos State alone absorbs 600,000 new residents every year and carries a documented housing deficit of 3.4 million units alone. The national gap sits at an estimated 28 million units. Which means due to high demand and low supply, Rents have doubled in under four years, rising faster than average wages, yet the market still demands that tenants produce a full year’s rent upfront before they can move into a home.
These conditions – rising construction costs, stagnant incomes, and entrenched rental market norms are what sustain the case for rent financing in Lagos and Nigeria at large.
PropComms Africa has spent time tracking this market through data. What data doesn’t always surface is how the operators building inside it actually experience it; – the decisions they’re making, the problems they’re running into, and where they think the model is going next. This article is one of those conversations.
We had a sit-down conversation with Miss Chisom Okorie of Ulé Homes, a RNPL proptech startup co-founded by Chisom Okorie, Omolade Akinwumi, and Azeez Abdulyekeen in 2024, offers one of the most instructive views of this progression. Okorie traced the company’s growth from a single rent-financing product to a vertically integrated housing finance operation and gave a candid account of the market conditions that shaped it.
The Rent Financing Model
To understand what rent financing actually does, let’s start with the math. A tenant paying ₦2.4 million annually, accessed through an RNPL platform at a monthly interest rate of 2.9%, converts that lump sum into approximately ₦220,000 per month which, for a ₦500,000 monthly earner is 44% of income which is well above the UN’s 30% affordability benchmark coupled with platform charges adding another 8 – 15% to the total annual cost of housing.
Those numbers look uncomfortable on paper. But the alternative framing matters more than the headline rate.
The same tenant would otherwise spend 5 months saving, pay 20 – 25% informal interest, or stay in inadequate housing. That’s the actual trade-off being made. Chisom Okorie puts it plainly: “People are usually excited about the cost-benefits and even the opportunity cost. If I’m paying monthly on this basis as opposed to paying this lump sum to my landlord, I can actually use this money to do other things – some of them to buy cars, some of them for their children’s education, personal development and all.”
The shift from savings problem to cash flow management is the core value proposition of rent financing. Whether it works economically depends entirely on who is receiving it, income level and at what rate.
Ulé Homes
Ulé Homes started with a problem the founders faced during their time as students whose academic commitments made formal employment impractical and uneasy yet, faced the same wall most Lagos renters face when it was time to find accommodation – a lump sum they simply didn’t have. So, they sought to provide a solution; Rent financing was the immediate answer.
But it was never the destination.
Okorie is clear about the original intent: “Rent financing was like the stepping stone to even get into the market. But the vision has always been: how do we ensure that young people like us actually get to own homes, whether they want to live in it or use it for investment?“
After two years of operating under real market conditions and listening closely to what customers actually needed expanded that vision into something more layered. Ulé Homes now runs three interconnected product lines: short-term rent financing, a rent-to-own scheme, and developer project financing. Each one emerged from what the market revealed along the way.
But, what separates Ulé Homes from most platforms in this space is its refusal to treat rent financing as the end point. For Ulé Homes, it’s the entry point and the most important question is what happens after the tenant moves in which brings us to what their product offerings entail:
Rent Financing
Ulé Homes’ rent financing product follows the standard rent-now-pay-later structure; The platform pays the landlord the full annual rent upfront, and the tenant repays in monthly installments. But two years of operating under real market conditions have shaped how that actually works in practice.
The platform runs a two-tier rate model. The first option sits at 2.9% monthly interest with a 50% down payment, enabling disbursement within 24 hours. The second drops to 1.7% with no down payment requirement, substituting a one-month deposit instead. Customers aren’t forced into a single structure; rather, they’re matched to whichever option fits their financial profile.
“With different financial partners come different rates and different requirements,” Okorie explains. “Whichever one is fine by the customer, that’s what they go for. It feels like consulting or advisory at some point. We just ensure that you understand properly what you’re getting into.” When asked if the rates are given across the board.
On credit risk, the model has evolved significantly. Ulé Homes started by requiring a 50% deposit as collateral which is a structure that also functioned as a retention tool, since the deposit was returned with interest at loan completion.
However, that model has since given way to a more sophisticated approach. Ulé Homes now works with financial institution partners that fund qualified borrowers with clean credit histories and consistent income inflows without requiring the full 50% upfront. Insurance coverage provides an additional buffer, covering at least three months of repayments in the event of job loss.
The result is an asset-light operation that distributes credit risk across partners rather than concentrating it on the platform itself.
Rent-to-Own
According to Chisom Okorie, The rent-to-own product wasn’t planned. It was noticed.
While reviewing a rent financing application, Okorie spotted something in a customer’s bank statement – regular direct debits of ₦40,000 or more every month which turned out to be mortgage repayments. The customer was already paying down a property. They just didn’t know a structured pathway to ownership existed through a platform like Ulé Homes.
“It dawned on me that this is actually possible to do… And then, for people in their 30s who come for rent financing, I’m doing the analysis, if this person is going to be paying us ₦600,000 – ₦700,000 monthly for rent finance for their house in Lekki, is it not better that this person actually finds an apartment and gets to own it at the end of the day?” – Okorie recalls.
The rent-to-own product now operates at 9.75% per annum with a maximum 20-year repayment timeline and a provision that allows customers to exit at any point. Some customers are already planning to liquidate in two to three years – treating the product less as a long-term mortgage commitment and more as a structured property acquisition vehicle.
Though this option isn’t available for everyone, Customer segmentation determines which product gets proposed. Younger tenants in their twenties primarily seeking stable accommodation are directed toward rent financing. Higher earners in their thirties and forties with the income base to support ownership are introduced to rent-to-own — often for the first time, because many simply don’t know it’s available. The platform’s KYC analytics enable this segmentation proactively, before the customer even thinks to ask.
Project Financing
The third product came from turning the question around. Rent financing and rent-to-own both address demand by helping tenants and buyers access properties that already exist. The supply side had its own problem: developers with viable projects with no working capital to complete them matched against a growing base of would-be homeowners seeking off-plan opportunities.
Ulé Homes moved to solve that too.
Ulé Homes now offers milestone-based project financing to developers, disbursing funds in tranches (₦250 million per verified milestone), with project managers evaluating completion before each release. Off-plan units are matched to the rent-to-own buyer pipeline, creating a closed-loop supply-demand connection. Okorie describes the model as, “We have the off-takers, people in their 40s who want to own homes. We automatically match them to those units. So it’s easier on all ends to make that happen.”
For developers, this solves a problem that conventional bank financing rarely addresses cleanly: staged capital tied to verified construction progress rather than a single upfront commitment. For buyers, it opens access to off-plan properties through a financing structure they can actually afford. The closed-loop model changes the risk profile of off-plan development in ways the traditional system doesn’t.
Ulé Homes: The Housing Finance Value Chain
| Product | Customer Segment | Rate / Terms |
|---|---|---|
| Rent Financing (RNPL) | Salary earners & business owners; 20s–30s | 1.7% – 2.9%/month; max 12 months |
| Rent-to-Own | Higher earners; 30s – 40s; diaspora buyers | 9.75% p.a.; up to 20 years; early exit allowed |
| Developer Project Financing | Residential developers; off-plan projects | Milestone tranches of ₦250M+; repaid on unit sales |
Using Agents and Developers as a Distribution Network?
According to Chisom, one of Ulé Homes’ most instructive operational decisions is its approach to the agent ecosystem. While the initial instinct was to work around agents, the company discovered that agents are, in fact, the most efficient distribution channel available.
Okorie explained, “We found out it was impossible to eliminate agents and their network. So we told them we are not eliminating you, but we want to bring more business to you. Have you encountered customers that actually like the property but because of the cost, they decide not to go? Introduce them to us.”
Ulé Homes now operates a formal agent network with commission structures, converting estate agents from potential competitors into a lead generation engine. The division of labour is clean – agents handle inspection and client relationships, the platform handles underwriting and funding.
The same logic applies on the Developer’s side also. Developers approach Ulé Homes with clients seeking mortgage structures for properties priced above immediate cash affordability.
In both cases, the referral relationship means the platform’s B2C acquisition cost is significantly lower than direct marketing, a meaningful advantage in a sector where digital customer acquisition is expensive, and trust is earned slowly.
Navigating The Rent Financing Market
Ulé Homes launched serving salaried employees exclusively. After six months, it extended access to business owners, assessing them against six months of bank transaction history. CBN guidelines capping monthly debt repayments designed to prevent over-leveraging created a meaningful rejection rate among applicants with inconsistent cash flows or debt-to-income ratios that couldn’t support the loan amount requested.
The informal sector remains largely out of reach. Gig workers, traders, and artisans – the segment with arguably the most acute housing needs don’t yet fit the current credit model. This isn’t a problem unique to Ulé Homes. It’s a sector-wide ceiling that no RNPL platform has meaningfully cracked yet.
On the investor side, the company ran into a different kind of wall. The founders were “too young.” The company was “too early.” The proptech sector’s credibility had taken hits that made institutional money cautious across the board. Ulé Homes’ response was to keep operating rather than keep pitching.
That discipline is worth noting. The company has scaled to date without raising external investor capital – a fact that distinguishes it from platforms that burned through VC money before resolving their unit economics. “The market was saying a totally different thing from what the investors were saying,” Okorie says. “We had customers applying, we were disbursing, people were paying their rent, and people were coming back. So it just shows there’s a market for it.”
However, the narrative shifted when Ulé Homes entered the Antler 2025 cohort and won the 2025 Moonshot by TechCabal pitch competition. Inbound investor interest, previously close to zero, turned active. The lesson for the broader sector is pointed: in a post-Spleet environment, institutional validation carries more weight with investors than a compelling demand story alone.
“Proof of model matters more than proof of market.”
What Does Rent Financing Actually Solve?
Okorie doesn’t oversell the model when asked whether rent financing can meaningfully address Nigeria’s housing crisis, her answer was measured: “In terms of affordability or even flexibility, I think it works. But in terms of solving the entire housing issue, the 28 million housing deficit, I am sceptical about that. The cost of building and material costs are a lot. Even with rent-to-own, how many people earn up to ₦500,000 a month? We can’t help everybody. But we try as much as possible to innovate in the space we currently are in.”
That honesty is a useful calibration for anyone evaluating this space. Rent-Now-Pay-Later is not a supply-side fix. Lagos has 3.4 million fewer housing units than it needs, and rent financing doesn’t add a single one. What it does is help a specific income tier – medium to high-earning formal salaried workers compete more effectively for the units that already exist, without absorbing the capital shock of an annual lump sum.
Where Ulé Homes starts to move closer to a supply-side play is in the connection between its three products. Rent financing brings in the customer. Rent-to-own converts them into a buyer. Developer project financing channels capital to the people building the units. The loop, when it closes, does at least partially address inventory creation which is more than most financial institutions in this space can claim.
What This Means for Investors and Developers
The demand signal in this market is not ambiguous. Tenants want to pay rent monthly. They want pathways to ownership. Developers want capital structured around how construction actually works which is in stages, tied to progress, not disbursed in a single tranche against a promise.
What Ulé Homes has built is a structure designed to serve both sides of that equation efficiently and sustainably. Asset-light operations, institutional financial partners for funding and collections, income-linked credit selection, and a distribution network built on agent and developer trust which are the markers that separate platforms generating traction from platforms generating longevity.
Rent financing in Nigeria is still in the early stages. The platforms that will matter at scale are those that have moved beyond the demand narrative and resolved the harder operational questions – credit risk distribution, customer segmentation, supply-side integration.
Ulé Homes is one of the clearer examples of what that looks like in practice.
For developers, the emergence of integrated housing finance platforms that can connect off-plan supply to a pre-qualified, financed buyer pool is a distribution channel worth taking seriously.
The old model of building and hoping the market shows up is harder to justify when the alternative exists.