Our children mean everything to us. They are our world. As far as we are concerned, the world starts and ends with them.
It doesn’t matter how much they have grown over the years. It doesn’t matter how old they are at the moment, they are still our babies.
We still remember how we held them when they were born. How tiny and vulnerable they were. We still remember our tears of joy. How we cradled them and swore under our breath that we will always protect and provide for them.
That we will give them the best of this world and do everything in our power to make this life easy and simple for them.
That is our duty. Our obligation. To do everything in our power to make life easy and simple for them. To put things in place for them that will take care of them and all their financial needs even when we aren’t there.
To provide and take care of them is our main motivation for doing whatever it is we do. Be it running our own company, a career or business. It all boils down to being able to take care of their needs.
To God be the glory. You have ran the race and you have won. You have accumulated significant financial abundance. You have amassed significant wealth.
Now the million dollar question is, how do you pass this wealth you have accumulated to your children and grandchildren?
How do you preserve this your wealth and pass it down to your children?
Do you put it in the bank as a fixed deposit?
Invest it in stocks for them? How about gold?
Or do you take the modern gen-z route of investing in Crypto?
To answer this question properly, come with me let’s visit a man who have faced similar problems, similar dilemma, similar questions and see how he solved it.
A man who turned his £2,000 into a $5 million nest egg for his kids and see what he did so we can copy him.
I say this because life is actually quite simple. If you want to become successful in a particular field or a particular thing.
The easiest way to do that is to first of all look at the people who have achieved success at that and model what they did to achieve their success.
With that said, come with me let’s go see this man who created a truly multi-generational wealth from a mere £2,000 investment.
His name is Joseph Adefarasin, in case you are wondering if and where you have heard the name, then you must be familiar with his son, Pastor Paul Adefarasin. Founder and Overseer of House on The Rock church.
About 50 years ago, Mr Joseph Adefarasin acquired land at Akin Adesola now Victoria Island for just £2,000. To understand just how incredible this is, at the time of the acquisition Victoria Island was empty.
Just a reclaimed, marshy land that most people were shying away from. Most people, but not Mr Joseph who acquired land there with £2,000.
How to Invest and Compound ₦1 Billion in Real Estate – A Must Read.
He didn’t have the money to start building and developing his land but that was fine with him.
He wasn’t in a hurry. He held the land till the area started to develop and open up. Both residential houses and commercial building started to spring up, the hype was active. Everyone wanted a piece of Victoria Island.
This was when a real estate company approached him with a Joint Venture proposal.
They wanted to build residential houses on his land, operate it for some years and transfer it all back to him. They agreed and signed.
So the company built residential houses on his land and collected rent for 10 years.
After the period of 10 years, the ownership of the houses and of course land was transferred back to Mr Joseph Adefarasin.
In real estate this type of deal is called a build and transfer JV deal, I can’t really go into it in this article as it is a topic on it’s own.
After those houses and land was transferred back to him, the rent Mr Joseph collected from the houses is what he used to send all his children to the best international schools.
Not only that, it sustained and provided for him throughout his life. So much so that he never needed to liquidate the land himself.
50 years after the investment, by this time he had died. His children came together to liquidate the property.
Guess how much the property was sold for?
$5 million dollars.
From £2,000 to $5 million. This is the power of real estate.
Real estate is the only asset class that will not only preserve your wealth but also exponentially grow it for you.
There are different assets out there. Some by their nature more suitable for preserving wealth but not growing it.
Example is gold. Gold can excellently preserve your wealth but grow it? Not really, trying to exponentially grow your wealth by investing in gold is like bringing a tortoise to a horse race.
On the other hand there are assets that are good at growing your wealth but very poor at preserving it long term.
Example is stocks, or even the currency of the youths of these days, crypto.
When you invest in them, they can grow your money in the short term but they are so volatile in nature that a single news headline can send their values crashing to a bottom of the ocean low.
This makes them poor vehicle to preserve and transfer your wealth down to your kids.
There are certain criteria that an asset must meet for it to become a successful wealth transfer vehicle.
First and foremost, it must be able to preserve and protect your wealth from inflation. If inflation is eating into your wealth then by the time it gets down to your kids, it has lost significant value.
That’s like being in a place without water, finally managing to see and fetch water but then chooosing to preserving the water inside a leaking container.
A big mistake!
That is not a wealth transfer.
Secondary apart from the asset being able to protect your money from inflation thus preserving it, it must be able to grow your wealth.
A truly successful wealth transfer is when you originally put away $1 million dollars and by the time it is getting to your kids, that $1 million has turned to $5 million, $10 million even $100 million.
That is how a true and lasting multi-generational wealth is built.
The only asset that simultaneously preserves your wealth from inflation and grows it exponentially is real estate.
Not just any type of real estate property, but land in particular.
Land is the single most scarce resource on planet earth. As a matter of fact, in some places like New York City, land is so scarce that what they are selling and buying there now is floors and Air-rights.
You can’t go wrong investing in land. Whatever amount of money you want to pass down to your kids, simply use it to buy land.
The price of the land at the moment you are buying it doesn’t matter. Whether it is a ₦2 billion Ikoyi waterfront land, a ₦500 million Omole, Ikeja land, or a ₦4 million Epe land.
The price doesn’t matter because whatever the price, it is nothing compared to what that land will be selling 10, 20 or whatever years from now when you will pass it down to your kids.
If a mere £2,000 land investment could appreciate to a whooping $5 million, how much do you think your own land investment will grow into?
The fact that you are investing for your kids mean that the land will have adequate time to appreciate, grow and compound!
Do you know the law and power of compounding?
Passing down your wealth is long term. Think long term.
Another benefit of transferring your wealth down to your kids is that you teach them a valuable life lesson.
By the time they see how profitable your land investment is, they themselves will copy you and start investing in land.
Which is exactly what happened with Joseph Adefarasin. When Pst Paul saw how a single real estate investment made by his father paid for him and his siblings school fees in the best universities, and later they still liquidated it for $5 million.
They ate their cake and still had it.
He decided that he would go all in investing in real estate so in the 2000s when Lekki just like the time his father bought Victoria Island was still coming up, he bought just about 10 acres of land there.
An acre is 6 plots. So that’s about 60 plots. He bought it for just ₦25 million.
60 plots of land in Lekki Peninsula for just ₦25 million. How much do you think those plots are worth now?
That ₦25 million land investment is worth over ₦5 billion now. The land alone.
You can’t go wrong investing in land in Lagos!
Lagos is one of the fastest growing cities in the whole world by population. Daily, as much as 10,000 people are emigrating from different parts of the country to Lagos.
What drives the appreciation and increase in the value of land is population growth. The more a population grows, the more economic activities and developments
With a population that is exploding like this, the best investment you can make is to own a piece of Lagos. Hands down!
Earlier I told you that land is now so scarce in New York City that what they are buying and selling there now is floors and air-rights.
Why is this? What factor contributed to this?
Well, first off, New York is mostly an island. Of course it has a mainland part but it is mostly an island.
Secondary it is the biggest city in the US both by population and economy. The biggest.
As if that is not enough, it is the smallest city in terms of size compared to other big cities like Los Angeles, Houston, Jacksonville et cetera
Does any of this sound familiar? Which city is the biggest in Nigeria by population and economy? Which city is the smallest by size?
You can’t go wrong buying land in Lagos.
Mr Joseph Adefarasin acquired a piece of it for only 2,000 and years later that same peice was sold for $5 million.
His son acquired a piece of it for only ₦25 million and years later that same piece is now worth over ₦4 billion.
If you acquire a piece of it now for your kids, how much do you think it will be worth by the time that they inherit it?
As you are reading this right now, you might be thinking, “All these sounds wonderful but Ugochukwu, I have heard so much disturbing stories about buying land in Lagos. I don’t want to be a victim of fraud or lose my land”
Your fears are not unfounded. They are as legitimate as they can be.
Last week I was listening to an American, a black American narrate his first trip down to Africa. He had heard so much about Africa, the reports were so discouraging, grotesque and bad that in his mind coming here is like taking a trip back in time to the beginning of civilisation.
So imagine when he landed and instead of a backward thinking, still barbaric people, mud huts and unpaved streets what he found was the warmest, most resilient and kind people.
Throughout his stay, instead of mud huts, he stayed in a 5 star hotel and engaged the services of a car rental company that took him around daily in a Rolls-Royce, along majestically paved roads and streets.
That was the biggest shock of his life.
A lot of things can get blown out of proportions. The risk of buying land or any property in Lagos is one of them.
Have people lost money buying land in Lagos? Of course they did. But if you go and check all the cases of people who have lost money investing in Lagos real estate, they all made one common mistake.
They went about it on their own. They didn’t do any due diligence and they weren’t working with any real estate consultant that has a deep knowledge of the Local real estate market and locations.
When you get sick, why do you go to the doctor? Why not medicate yourself?
When your car spoils why do you take it to the mechanic?
When you are building a house, why engage the services of an engineer?
When you want to invest in real estate, don’t do it on your own. Reach out to knowledgeable, real estate consultants who will take you by the hand and guide you every step of the way.
Through their guidance and deep knowledge of the Lagos real estate market, they will help you mitigate the risks involved.
Now to be honest with you, just as I tell all my clients, real estate investment just like every other investment out there carries a risk. No matter the due diligence done, no matter the checks done, all investments carries risk be it stocks, be it startup investment, starting a business, name it.
It is all risky. My job is to lower the risk to the barest minimum while increasing your returns to the highest maximum.
So whenever you are investing in real estate, please to prevent stories that touch, get in touch with a good enough real estate consultant.
It might cost you small to pay their professional fees but paying their 5% professional fees and getting a safe, secure real estate property that will be here taking care of your famly or doing it on your own and losing your whole money at the end, which one is better?
Now, you are probably saying, “But Ugochukwu how do I find a good enough real estate consultant”?
Today is your lucky day because as it is, you have found the best in the entire Lagos! Scroll down to see how you can get in touch.
I am Ugochukwu.
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