Desperate. In dire straits. Refusing to slow down. At least, that is one way to describe a company that keeps completing one development and immediately moving on to the next.

But in Nigerian real estate, that kind of desperation may be exactly what a homebuyer should want.

Consider the evidence.

Lekki Gardens has completed 14 projects.

More than 19,000 units have been sold across its completed developments. Over 11,000 units have been delivered across Lekki and Ajah.

More than 3,000 units have been sold in Ikoyi and Banana Island. The Paradise Abuja sold out its 1,000 units.

Another 5,000 units have been delivered across other projects in Abuja and Port Harcourt. And more than 19,000 customers have trusted Lekki Gardens with their money.

If this is what being in dire straits looks like, the company appears to be doing remarkably well. But there is a reason Lekki Gardens seems almost incapable of slowing down.

Long before the estates, the thousands of customers and the headlines, its founder and CEO, Dr Richard Nyong, was simply a man trying to buy property with his own money.

Seven times, he tried. Seven times, he was defrauded. It was an experience that could have made anyone walk away from real estate.

For Nyong, it did the opposite.

“I told myself: if someone whose full-time work is real estate can be deceived seven times, the ordinary person bringing their life savings to this sector will be deceived a hundred times over,” he recalls.

That frustration eventually became something more useful than anger.

It became a mandate. To build a real estate company that gave ordinary Nigerians a fighting chance. And that is where the “desperation” starts to make sense.

Because building one more estate is easy to announce. Launching another development is easy. Putting another billboard on the road is easy.

The difficult part is completing what was promised. Turning a plot of land into a home. Turning off-plan purchase into a handover.

Turning a buyer’s money into something they can touch, live in and call their own. That is where many developers struggle. And perhaps that is why Lekki Gardens keeps moving.

Lagos has a housing deficit running into millions. Rents continue to rise. Land is becoming harder to find. And for the average Nigerian, the difference between finding a home and losing their life savings can sometimes come down to one thing:

Who they trust to build it. So Lekki Gardens appears to have chosen an unusual response. Do more. Build more. Deliver more. Then do it again.

From Lekki and Ajah to Ikoyi, Banana Island, Abuja and Port Harcourt, the company has continued to expand its footprint while delivering thousands of homes to the people who bought them.

That may not sound like desperation in the traditional sense.

But perhaps it is. Desperate to finish the project. Desperate to hand over the keys. Desperate to start the next development. Desperate to keep earning the trust of the people who put their savings into their hands.

And if that is the kind of desperation a developer has, perhaps homebuyers should hope it never goes away.

Because in a country where too many people have lost money waiting for homes that never came, the developer who refuses to stop delivering is not in dire straits.

It is doing exactly what it should.

So yes, Lekki Gardens is desperate. And if that is an accusation, it is one the company should be very happy to answer:

Guilty.

Nike Igandan, a real estate practitioner, wrote in from Lagos.