ASSESSING THE TREND IN RENTAL VALUES OF COMMERCIAL PROPERTIES ALONG OYEMEKUN ROAD AKURE, NIGERIA

Abstract

Commercial property investment which is now very evident along Oyemekun Road, Akure, Nigeria, a place characterized hither to with residential development leaves investors at dark with the choice of commercial property investment. The commercial properties evident in the study area are Purpose-built office space, Converted office space and Shopping Complex. In a bid to lead investors aright on the best decision of the type of property to invest their hard earned income in, there was the study of the trends in rental values of the properties between 2006 and 2011 in order to discover that with the highest trend. This study which is a cross-sectional research that entailed the survey of the entire 22 Estate Surveying Firms in the study area made use of questionnaires as the primary source of data. There was also the use of both descriptive and inferential statistical techniques such as the frequency distribution table and the simple linear regression, and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). From the study it was also revealed that although purpose built office space with the highest R2 of 0.9 having the highest trend in rental values will result to a faster recoup of investment, the converted office space is most evident (53%) while the shopping complex is the most professionally managed (46%) respectively. The use of (ANOVA) coupled with Tukey post-hoc test reveals that the rental values of the three properties at the 95% confidence level are significantly different (p=0.000). The researchers therefore opines that the purpose built office space commanding the highest rent and trend should be the focus of both investors and even professional managing agents in order to maximize returns.