The Typical Real Estate Developer

PROFILE Charles Rugira is the General Manager of Real Contractors, a company dealing in construction, estate development and property management. Born on March 17, 1971 in Uganda, he attended Kitante Hill School and attained engineering skill from Kicwamba Technical College. His experience in the business is derived from the trainings attained during his post graduate Diploma in Construction and Project Management from Bangolore, India. He also holds a Bachelors Degree in Charted Quality Surveying from the University of Reading, United Kingdom. “I have been in this field since 1990 hence the experience,” Rugira explains. The 39-year-old real estate developer has worked for SONARWA as the Property Manager before joining Bond Trading, a sister company of Real contractors. “The company has done a lot of commercial construction and set up several estates and hostels like; Kagugu Villa estates, Nyarutarama Palm village, Kabuga Hillside estates including the extension and rehabilitation of Inyange Industries Ltd.”Rugira reveals. “Over fifty hectares of land in Kabuga belongs to the company and only a portion has been used to build the Kabuga Hillside estates comprising of 79 standalone massionettes,” he said. These stunning and luxuriously finished high quality houses are complemented with a waste water treatment plant. These come at a staggering price worth Rwf77,850,250 million. According to Rugira, 22 houses have been occupied while 57 are still available, with mortgage financing at Bank of Kigali and BCR. Seemingly soft spoken, Rugira extremely explains the whole ideal of contracting, engineering and mortgage facilities. He said: “Regarding mortgage financing to acquire one of the massionettes, we went a milestone and negotiated for financing for mortgage facilities with Bank of Kigali. They assisted the company during the project so they have opened up a financing mortgage line for a period of ten years.” Customers pay 30 percent to the developer (Real Contractors) as the minimum requirement at the National Bank before they can disband the rest of the 70 percent to pay the developer. “This transaction simplifies our work since we need the money back so as to redevelop other areas.” Poorly structured houses in Rwanda need to be re-developed and Rugira says: “In Building Economics cities do rebirth, its re-developing, probably during the 60s the today poorly structured houses were big cities but now they are outdated and that’s why we are here.” Besides work Rugira is a family man married and blessed with two sons; seven-year-old Mark and Marvin who is only one year and seven months old. Dorau20@yahoo.co.uk