There is a need for specialization in the business of estate surveying and valuation.

ESV Gordin Nwako,

In every profession, specialization is what defines the beauty of the professional skills of its members. In the fields of estate surveying and valuation, engineering, medicine, marketing, media, and agriculture, just to mention a few, no one person can claim to be the master of all segments of the profession.

In the Nigerian context, so many professionals make claims of specialization in all the areas of that particular profession. In the built environment, for example, one building contractor can claim specialization of the building from start to finish. And what he does is sub-let areas that are not his field to non-professionals as sub-contractors.

In Nigeria, the number of estate surveying and valuation firms is on the rise, as registered by the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers and the regulatory body, which is the Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria (ESVARBON).

As the number of estate surveying and valuation firms grows, there is a need for specialization among the firms to professionally and adequately capture the market. Where all the firms are doing the same things, nobody is doing anything, and this gives room for quackery and non-professionals to dominate the market.

There should be a clear-cut definition of what each firm is doing. A developer should fully concentrate on property development; a specialist in valuation should concentrate primarily on valuation; and even this can be segmented into institutional, commercial, and private residence valuation. Even in the agency business, some firms should be specialists in the areas of property leasing, letting, and buying.
Marketing is another area that has been grossly ignored by estate firms. There is a need for professional marketing, branding, and advertising in the business of estate surveying and valuation in Nigeria.

Property consulting is a very vague statement that requires segmentation for the industry as a whole to function well. The term “property consulting” is what has given room for all sorts of professionals to position their feet in the real estate space in Nigeria.
When the above arguments are taken seriously, the industry will function better for the common good of all stakeholders. The business of estate surveying and valuation is so large and profit-oriented for every professional to play and succeed.

To achieve this, there is a need for the immediate bridging of knowledge gaps that exist in the industry. Training and retraining of professionals in this space must be a continuous thing to engender the needed specialists and specializations. Here, the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers and the Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria have pivotal roles to play in equipping their members with the needed skills to excel in their respective areas of specialization.

ESV Gordin Nwako is a registered estate surveyor and valuer. He writes from Abia State, South-East Nigeria.