21/12/2024
Before you build your first house as a young person, make sure you have a business and an income-generating asset that delivers and generates daily income every day, and then you can splurge on building your dream home.
Many landlords in Lagos are broke, not because they didn’t use to have money, but the fact was that they invested their windfall or life savings in a property and then went flat broke afterwards.
Contrary to what we were taught as kids, building and owning a house in your building stage as a young person is a liability and not the flex we think it is.
Let me break it down.
You invested 150 million to build a house with an option for rent.
My sister! It will take you 30 years, if not more, to recover your money back, and the inflation will make nonsense of whatever it is that you are earning from that investment after the first 5 years of your investment.
1 million of 5 years ago is no longer the 1 million of today, so imagine owning a property that you collect 1 million as rent since 5 years ago.
But when you have a business that delivers 100 million yearly and more in revenue every year, you can afford to build your house and still continue your daily lifestyle without any minimal disruption.
I used to live in an estate where the landlord who owns half of the properties in that estate was broke.
Yes, they own properties inside that estate but are liquid broke.
Even though they are landlords in Lagos, they can’t afford to bring out 5 million in cash in the case of a life emergency, but they own properties, and they are bragging that I'm a Lagos landlord to their friends.
The reason is not far-fetched.
They invested their seed in the land of Lagos without thinking of how to grow the yam in their barn.
They own properties but are flat broke.
Don’t be this person.
Be obsessed about growing the yam in your barn first; be obsessed about growing your capacity to earn more bread, then you can take some yam from the barn to plant and bury in the soil without your family going hungry because you want to answer a landlord.
I beg you, my brother.
