I see a lot of people around me complaining about their
salary, either it is not paid early or it is just not enough, well to be
honest, we both know it is not just enough to live the kind of lifestyle we
wish, but there comes a time when we have to put on our big boy pants and start
making some serious decisions for ourselves. The typical economy in any country
today has the average citizen in a lock, which is not being able to earn a
decent living, and when I say the average citizen, I actually mean the average
citizen, that is over 60 percent of the country’s population, obviously not
you, cause believe me the average citizen of any country would never read this
article, they do not believe in any specialist telling them how to spend or how
to live their lives, let alone read something as important as this to better
their lives, common you know am telling the truth, you seriously think the lady
you buy your groceries from, reads about financial planning online, well if she
did she might definitely not be where she is.
This article is going to be taking a case study of Africa, well Nigeria to be exact, so let us
get to it. Houses are extreme expensive, like super expensive, I stay in Abuja
and Lagos, so it even makes it worse, I see people spend time and time in
rented apartments, then best thing that happens is that at the end of the day,
they spend a huge part of their pension building or buying a house. The average
working class Nigerian that has access to this article possibly makes a
#100,000 a month, and you see the cost of owning a home going up to 15 to 30
million naira, let us be factual here, how in God’s earth would someone earning
#100K or even 400K own a house of his own, it is like almost impossible, or
sorry, it is not possible unless proper financial planning steps are taken,
which is what I am bring to you today.
First I have to make you understand 3 things in particular;
·
Salary to location
·
Housing types and
·
Understand you size
HOUSING
TYPES: this is
having perfect understand about housing types and how much one would cost you,
whether it is a duplex, or bungalow or an apartment building, for me I would
advice any Nigerian with a good income to plan commercially big, which is go for an apartment building straight
up, instead of wasting time to build a bungalow or duplex, why? well cause you
could as well commercialize, ask yourself which do you prefer, owning a
bungalow in 7years or a duplex in 9 years, or just own an apartment building in
10 years that is going to fetch you 2 to 4 million naira annually. Owning a
home is a thing of pride for the average African, but if you want to be smart
about it why not own an apartment building first, you could even live in it if
you like. So housing types optional for you;
·
4-5 bedroom bungalow in 7-8 years with your income
(cost you 8-15 million naira to build, 15-20 million naira to buy at once, a
landed property, no profit from it)
·
4-5 bedroom duplex in 8-9 years with your income
(cost you 15-30 million naira to build, 30-75 million naira to by at once, a
landed property, also no profit) or
·
4 – 6 Apartment building 10-11 years with your
income ( cost you 15-30 million naira to build, 30-100 million naira to buy at
once, obviously a landed property with profit of at the least 2-3 million naira
coming in yearly till Jesus comes)
UNDERSTANDING
YOUR SIZE: well am
sure you might have heard this phrase from either your spiritual leader or
mentor, you have to learn to understand you size, fingers are not equal, no
matter how little you make there is always a place they sell you size, that is
the truth, even if you make #20k a month, know one thing, might take a while
but yes with that you can own a home with that, where your size is because
obviously with that #20-50k a month, you cannot own a home in banana island or
lekki, or maitama, but you can own a home, there is always a place they sell
your size, and the very good thing about knowing this is that there is a flip
size to that coin, a landed property is not a gadget or car, meaning it will
never loose value, like never, if you understand your size you can actually get
a land or home in a place that by the time you finally decide to build or live
there, it would actually be worth enough for you to sell and make far more
money, I mean common, an average shop in Abuja today is valued at about 15-30
million naira, but those that bought it at the right time got it for far less,
that the flip side, so know and understand one thing, no matter how little you
make there is always a place they sell your size, so understand your size now.
So let us get to the second path of this article which takes
you through practical steps of actually building
a house with that salary
Step 1 –
think responsibly: it is time to start planning for the future, your
family, look at the average elderly adult around you, how many of them own a
house? Do you honestly feel you are better than them? Know one thing, that
which you are doing now is exactly what they did then, partying away all their
money, or trying to measure up to society standards, that is what got them
where they are, your situation might even be worse being that the world is
going to a whole new different dimension, at least in their time, all they has
to do was go to school, now it is a must, a bachelors degree is not even worth
much anymore, so stop the buying, stop
the excessive spending, look at your current income and divide it into section,
for family, food and upkeep, the one for transport, start making plans, and cut
cost as much as possible.
Step 3 –
talk to Built-Advice Architects: your Architect is best qualified to help you out
with a lot of things apart from designing your building, he could even help you
with the decision making as to the best building type to have on your piece of
land, be it a bungalow, a duplex, a multiplex in fact or an apartment building,
he or she can help you get the best design for the piece of land, that way you
have no regrets of your building being out dated like the views in Ibadan, also
you get to have all the necessary paper work needed to be done so you do not
have any problem in future either with the government or local indigenes.
Step 4 –
follow your Architect’s instructions:
now
here is the tricky part, there are
quacks and there are architects, quacks are really not registered, an Architect
is usually registered, meaning he or she has been trained for at least 8years,
not only to be able to draw building but to be able to relate well with you a
client and other consultants, and also written a few examinations to certify
him or her a professional in the field, so he or she alone is in the best
position to advice you on where, when and how to go about your construction,
not your bricklayer, not your builder, not your engineer, not your surveyor,
you can even make your architect aware of your financial situation that way he
can be of very good help to plan your money and time. If not you might end up
with a house you would live to regret, with several disturbances, whether from
local indigenes, labourers, or even government officials themselves.
Step 5 –
build gradually: it might
take about 5-7 years but you are going to have your building, building step by
step makes the cost of building easier and cheaper for you, when you have a
little extra cash you can pour it on it, with a #200k salary you can spend
about #500k at least a year on your house, starting by clearing the land,
planting your beautiful trees, building your garden and laying the very best
foundation option, then with time, you lay your blocks, do your German floor if
any, put your roof on it, finishes, painting, and the rest is easy for you.
Step 6 –
own your house now: the greatest problem of the 21st
century man is not having enough patience, it would take years believe me, it
would not be easy, time would fly by, but believe this, 95% of people you know now
would still not own a home in 15 years but would only be living from apartment
to apartment, but you would have your in at most 10 years. You need to master
patience to do this, the best option for me is still the apartment building
because, you could own a home and not have anything to do, you could even loose
your job, and have nothing to fall back on, but if you earn about #200k a
month, and salaries are not stable, promotions not coming through and the
family is growing with more financial responsibility, your children are going
to want to go to school, you could really do with the extra cash, you could
actually just build an apartment building, make your 2-4 million naira a year
which is like an extra #250-300k a month to your current salary, with house rent
out of the way. so you have to start making a decision now, if you are
unmarried, in your 20s there is no better time to start saving all that extra
cash so that before you are 40, worst comes to worst with life teaching you all
its lessons and showing you all its bad sides, failed plans and virtues wasted,
you would own a building at least and annually have a huge amount to pour
anywhere you want, if you have a family,
well it is never too late, this way you could own a home, have an extra source
of income without any stress, even plan for a second house which could be as
big as you want.
In conclusion,
Buckle up and get started on that saving, with great
understanding of your finances, building a home on your own is the best way to
go if you do not make much, living in a mortgaged home is cool if you stay
outside Africa where things are steady, but here, anything could happen to you,
and you really want to be on the right side when it does, do not become that
elderly fellow that keeps saying they could have done something when them had
the chance, take a step now, and know you really have to prepare your umbrella
for that rainy day, for more and better information you could contact me
through my email address on builtadvice@gmail.com
I am Olalekan Agbalu and this is a Built Advice.
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