There are empty two-bedroom apartments all over Lagos right now. The rent is being paid, the generator is being fuelled, and nobody is living in them. Their owners usually have a story: they bought for the market, or they are waiting for a tenant who never came, or they are stuck abroad. Meanwhile the young professional in Lekki is paying ₦1.8 million a year for a flat they could have booked for a few nights at a time.
Short-let is the gap between those two facts. And in a city where rent has become genuinely punishing — our breakdown of the cost of living in Nigeria in 2026 makes that painfully clear — the demand side is not the problem. The problem is that most owners approach it badly, or not at all.
Here is how to do it properly, whether you have one vacant flat or three.
Short-Let and Long-Let Are Two Different Businesses
Most mistakes happen because owners treat short-let as “rent, but daily”. It is not. It is a hospitality business that happens to use residential property.
A long-let landlord signs one tenant, checks the rent once a year, and thinks about the property twice a year. A short-let host sells a service. The service includes the apartment, the utilities being on when the guest arrives, clean linen, hot water, working air conditioning, Wi-Fi that works, and somebody answering the phone when the guest needs help at 9pm on a Saturday.
Once you understand it as hospitality, the maths changes completely. A flat that would let for ₦1.8 million a year can gross far more when priced nightly and sold 120 nights a year. Our guide to the top passive income ideas in Nigeria right now lists short-let for a reason, but “passive” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
Do the Numbers Before You Fall in Love With the Idea
Every cost line to subtract
Take your expected monthly gross and subtract everything. This is the arithmetic that keeps people out of trouble:
- Mortgage or rent — if the flat is still being paid off, this comes out first.
- Power — a short-let apartment burns far more units than a tenanted one. Prepaid meters are common; make sure the recharge is not on credit.
- Water, refuse, estate security and service charge — these do not shrink because the flat is empty most of the month.
- Cleaning and laundry between every stay — budget for it honestly, including supplies.
- Commission and the payment gateway — around 10 to 15 percent on most bookings.
- Repairs and replacements — a broken AC in peak season will happen. Set aside something monthly for it.
- Occupancy reality — you will not get 365 nights. Assume roughly 55 to 70 percent for a well-priced property in a good location, and less in a fringe area.
Occupancy: the number that decides everything
Now divide what is left by the number of nights you will realistically sell. This is where most first-time hosts get it wrong, so treat the occupancy rate honestly. If the arithmetic needs 90 percent occupancy to make sense, the property is wrong for short-let and should be rented long-term instead.
If the number left over is not worth the effort, do not do it. Nobody wants to read about short-let in Lagos from a host who lost money and blamed the guests.
Pricing: Where to Start and How to Adjust
Begin by checking what similar apartments in your area actually charge per night, on a normal weekday and on a normal weekend. Do not price from your own costs. Price against the alternatives for the same guest: a hotel, a serviced apartment, or a friend of a friend who has a spare room. Your price has to sit below the cost of the alternative and above your costs.
Weekends and holidays are where the money is. A flat that goes for ₦45,000 on a Tuesday and ₦75,000 on a Saturday earns more per available night than one that charges the same amount every day. Build that into your rate card from the start rather than adjusting after you notice your calendar is empty on Fridays.
Long stays are the other lever. A guest staying a week or a month usually expects a discount, and giving one gets you a booking that occupies your calendar instead of three separate turnovers. Three turnovers cost you three cleans and three sets of laundry for one unit of income. Do the maths on every discount before you offer it.
Getting Found: Where Lagos Stays Actually Get Booked
Listing on the big international platforms gets you visibility and a steady trickle of foreign and diaspora guests who already trust the platform. That visibility comes with a commission, and the platform owns a large part of the relationship with the guest.
Direct bookings
Local direct bookings cost you nothing per booking but they take real work. You will need your own listing page, a WhatsApp Business number that a human actually answers, and a way to take payment that a Nigerian guest trusts. Many Lagos hosts run both: international platforms for volume and visibility, direct WhatsApp bookings for better rates and lower fees. If you have never handled a rental agreement, our guide to renting in Lagos and avoiding agent scams is worth reading before you write your own terms.
Two practical details that matter more than most people expect. Photograph properly, in daylight, with the actual furniture you will leave in the place, because a guest who arrives to a different flat will not give you a second chance. And get your listing live and complete before you announce it, because early reviews are what carry a new listing.
Guest Screening: The Part Everybody Skips
The nightmare scenario is a guest who destroys the apartment, disputes charges, or overstays. It happens, and it happens to hosts who skipped verification because they were afraid of losing the booking.
A workable middle ground: take a copy of a government identity page, verify the phone number is real by calling it, confirm the number of guests matches your house rules, and take a refundable deposit. For longer stays, ask for a short video call. It is uncomfortable, it is slightly unusual in Nigeria, and it prevents the kind of problem that ends a hosting business in one weekend.
Write simple house rules and send them before arrival, not after an argument. No parties. No outside guests. Keep it brief and clear.
Protection and Compliance
Register with your state’s tourism or accommodation regulator where one operates, and check whether your building’s estate rules or your building management even permit short-let. A lot of estates do not, and that creates a conflict with your security and your guests.
Understand your insurance position. Standard home policies usually do not cover a commercial hospitality activity, and a guest who is injured in your flat is your problem. Get this right before you have a guest in the building, not after.
Finally, keep a basic record of every booking — who stayed, when, how they paid. It helps with tax, with disputes and with the estate management that will inevitably ask questions once short-lets become visible on your compound.
Who This Actually Suits
Short-let suits somebody with an apartment that genuinely sits empty, an eye for service, and enough liquidity to absorb a month where nothing is booked. It does not suit somebody buying a second flat purely to run as a hotel with borrowed money at a 20 percent deposit and a plan to cover it with one good month.
It also works beautifully as a bridge for Nigerians returning from the diaspora who need a place for three months while they settle — many of them are thinking about the whole question of moving back to Nigeria and what to know before relocating, and a serviced short-let is a much easier first step than a two-year lease.
One practical note for guests and hosts alike: reliable internet is now part of the product, not a bonus. A guest who cannot connect is a guest who checks out early, so test the connection at full house capacity before you list, not on the morning of arrival.
Conclusion
Short-let is one of the most reliable property plays in Lagos right now, and it fails for predictable reasons: the host priced it wrong, listed it badly, skipped verification, and treated it as passive income instead of a small hospitality business.
Price against the market, subtract every cost before you get excited, build a listing you would happily book yourself, verify guests even when it is uncomfortable, and keep the records. Do those five things and the arithmetic usually takes care of the rest.
And if you are still building up your income in other ways, our guide to 5 online side hustles that earn extra income from home can keep cash coming in while your first listings gather reviews.
