I was a plot before I was anything else. Plot 514, Cadastral Zone B11, if you want to be exact about it — and people usually are, at this stage.

Today someone finally said what I was going to become: eighteen units. Twelve one-bedrooms, split between two personalities — the Nook and the Nest. Six studios, called the Cove. All of it fully finished by the time anyone moves in, they said. No handing someone a shell and wishing them luck.

They also gave me a number that day. ₦45M, for a unit, outright, no shared name on the title. I didn't think much of it. A number on launch day is just a number on launch day.

It's a strange thing, becoming real slowly. For months I was drawings and a fence. Then, somewhere between December and January, I started having walls. Rooms. A shape a person could actually stand inside and picture their furniture in.

The ₦45M hadn't moved. Early buyers who came through the gate in those first months got exactly what the drawings promised, for exactly what the paper said. I remember thinking that wouldn't last forever. Nothing that's still being built ever prices itself like it's already done.

Something shifted this year that had nothing to do with my construction schedule. Kaura started coming up in conversations it didn't used to be part of, the kind of talk that usually means an area is about to stop being "up and coming" and start being "arrived."

I noticed it because it's the first time people asked about the district before they asked about the units. That's usually a sign. Land doesn't wait for buildings to finish before it gets more expensive. Buildings just tend to follow.

I'm not a just a plot of land anymore. I'm not even mostly drawings. I'm closer to finished than I am to the day I got my name, and today's the entry where that finally shows up in what I'm worth.

The ₦45M I was born with is gone. Here's what outright ownership costs now, unit by unit:

• The Cove (studio) — ₦55M on the ground floor, ₦59M on the first and second
• The Nook (one-bedroom) — ₦71M on the ground floor, ₦78M on the first and second
• The Nest (one-bedroom, two terraces) — ₦76M on the ground floor, ₦85M on the first and second

I told you a number doesn't stay the same for the whole story. This is that part.

If you're reading this while I'm still this close to finished and not yet handed over, you're reading it at the earliest point these numbers will ever be true. I don't know what I'll be worth once I'm actually done. I have a feeling neither will these. They say a word is enough. I wrote you a whole diary! Click the link below to secure your unit. 

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