Home ownership is a rite of passage everyone aspires to.
Having a space that is truly yours signals stability & accomplishment.
Home ownership is crucial to financial freedom, increases your networth, provides rental savings, and increases your investment & leverage potential. In contrast, house rent is plain vanilla expenditure which provides the renter with no returns, asides providing you a place to lay your head, and in addition, all further expenditure on house repairs & maintenance also hold no long term value for the renter. Finally, rent puts you at the mercy of the house owner with respect to major house repairs, and rental rates.
Have you ever thought about paying in mortgage rentals, the same amount you would have paid in rent; or just slightly higher? But the property is yours, appreciating annually; sometimes having the value appreciation on your house exceeding your annual mortgage payments.
Basically, have you considered buying your home with a convenient payment plan or on a mortgage? You begin to pay yourself rather than paying your landlord. If well planned, and with the right advisor, when you combine the annual rental savings (rent that you would have paid for living in a similar property), with annual capital appreciation (increase in the house value) of the house purchased, mortgage rental payments would be less (even in the Nigerian high interest rate regimes).
This implies that, if well structured, value addition is greater than value expended on annual mortgage rentals; plus the sense of security & stability that owning your home delivers which is unquantifiable intangible value. Imagine planning to own your home by the time you are 30 years old; and beginning to work towards it from getting your first job.
Rather than looking at options available, speaking to real estate advisors and working with experts in the industry, many young people & families shove home ownership aside as a task for the “later” future & resort to paying rents perpetually. This is based on the perception that the process of buying a first home is daunting & not easily surmountable.
In addition, the attendant responsibilities & obligations, in conjunction with the lack of requisite information & attendant challenges in an emerging economy like Nigeria also contribute to making the process appear arduous. Nevertheless, it is imperative to note that, when appropriately planned & structured, the hurdles of home ownership become significantly less and easier to transcend.
LET’S TALK ABOUT HOME OWNERSHIP
Talk Real Estate with Ibukun Adebayo-Adedayo
She’s on Instagram @ibukun_adedayo
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Ibukun Adebayo-Adedayo is a medical doctor turned financial advisory expert with a penchant for real estate finance. She is an advocate for home ownership for middle income earners.
