GMH and the Cost of Keeping its Promises
As it marks its eleventh anniversary, Vanessa Obioha looks at how the real estate company has navigated rising construction costs while maintaining customer confidence
When the naira began to lose significant value in 2023, Nigeria’s real estate developers faced a problem that went beyond rising construction costs. For developers selling properties off-plan, the bigger question was what to do about homes that had already been sold at prices agreed before the currency depreciation.
GodMade Homes Limited, popularly known as GMH Luxury, found itself facing that dilemma across eight developments.
Construction materials had become more expensive, particularly those linked to the foreign exchange rate. Labour and other project costs also rose. Yet customers who had committed to the properties had done so based on earlier prices.
GMH had a choice: pass the additional costs to customers, reduce project specifications, or absorb the difference.
According to the company, it chose the third option.
Between 2023 and 2025, GMH says it refunded more than N4 billion to customers who decided not to continue with their payment plans. Rather than revise the terms for customers who had already committed to their properties, the company says it allowed those who could no longer continue to withdraw and receive their money back.
The decision came at a cost. GMH says it also borrowed money during the period to meet its obligations, while continuing construction on the eight affected developments.
For the company, however, there was another consideration: maintaining the quality of the homes already sold.
As construction costs rose, project timelines inevitably came under pressure. GMH says it decided that if a compromise had to be made, it would be on delivery timelines rather than specifications. That meant taking longer to complete some projects rather than substituting materials or lowering the standards promised to customers.
“It’s in the moment that you face your deepest weakness that you receive the chance to forge your greatest strength,” says Ayoolanrewaju J. Kuyebi, the company’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer.
The episode highlights a wider problem confronting Nigeria’s off-plan property market: the difficulty of fixing a price for a project that may take years to complete in an economy where the cost of construction can change dramatically within months. For developers, absorbing such increases can threaten cash flow and profitability. For buyers, accepting revised prices after committing to a property can make the investment unaffordable. GMH’s approach was to absorb the immediate pressure rather than transfer it to customers who had entered the agreements under different economic conditions. The company says the strategy allowed all eight developments to remain active, although some timelines were extended. Two of its projects, in Lekki and Ikoyi, are now scheduled for delivery.
The episode also appears to have shaped how GMH views one of the less tangible assets of a property company: customer confidence. In a market where buyers are increasingly cautious about committing money to properties that may take years to complete, the ability to honour an agreement can be as important as the building itself. For GMH, the currency crisis therefore became more than a financial challenge. It became a test of how much it was prepared to absorb in order to preserve the terms on which customers had bought their homes in its eleventh year of existence.
The company’s eleventh anniversary provides the occasion to reflect on that period. But the more interesting story is what happened when the economics changed—and the decision the company made when its original promises became considerably more expensive to keep.