It is the biggest joy in the world; being a father or mother. There is absolutely nothing better than it. Seeing your child with their big, innocent smile and childish antics.
It feels you with a sense of purpose and love. As parents we want to give the world to our kids.
We want to protect them from any danger and at the same time we want to equip them to deal with any unforeseen danger.
That is why we tell them things like, ‘don’t talk to strangers’. That is why we send them to school, to protect and equip them for the future.
Our biggest obligation as parents is to secure the future of our kids. To set them up in such a way that no matter what happens tomorrow.
They will have a comfortable and bright future. We do this in different ways.
Some parents once their child is born open a bank account for the child and start saving money monthly or yearly for the child.
But why go through the stress of saving money in the bank for years? Why subject your hard earned money to the ruthless force of inflation?
The common mistake people make is save money in the bank thinking that that money they are saving in the bank is safe.
The truth however is that when you save money in the bank it loses value due to inflation. Inflation simply explained is the constant increase in the price of goods.
So if you deposit ₦10 million in the bank today, next year when you withdraw it, it is still that same ₦10 million plus whatever you got as interest but that money has lost purchasing power.
For example, when you deposited it in the bank the price of a bag of cement is ₦5,000/bag so that ₦10 million could buy 2,000 bags of cement.
Next year when you withdraw the money, due to inflation and the increase in prices, a bag of cement is now selling for ₦10,000/bag so your ₦10 million can only buy 1,000 bags.
Same amount. Same figures but it has massively lost purchasing power. That’s inflation. That’s what happens to your money when you save in the bank.
So why save in the bank and watch the money you are saving for your kids lose value when you could just either buy a piece of real estate in their name or buy in your name and hold the documents for them till they are old enough?
That is the most secure future you can possibly give them as a parent.
If your child is 5 years now and you buy land either in Epe or Ibeju-Lekki for them now, how much do you thing the land will be selling for by the time they are 18 years?
For context, in 2017 the average price of land in Epe was ₦900/sqm, today the average price of lands in Epe is 10,156.34/sqm. Do you see the growth and appreciation?
So imagine how much it will be in the coming years.
If your child is 10 years now and you buy land for them in either Epe or Ibeju-Lekki, how much do you think that land will be selling by the time they are 18 years?
If you have a child today and you buy a piece of land for them, do you think that when it is time for the university that you will be sweating for where you will get money?
You want to give your child the best education available. You want to send them abroad to study. Why are are not seeding that money in real estate?
Why are you working so hard, sweating and giving the banks your money when you should be using it to buy lands for your kids?
Money Habits: The Power of Investing In Real Estate.
Lands that will appreciate 20X, 50X, 100X what you originally bought it by the time your kids are old enough and need the funds.
Do you know what happens to the money you give to the banks?
Did you seriously believe they keep it in their vault waiting for the day you will come back to withdraw?
No!
They take your money and they give it out as loans.
They take your money and they use it to invest in assets and securities they know will appreciate.
They use your money to acquire bonds, they use it to market and get more customers who they will convince to give them more money.
In short. They invest your money to make more money for themselves. To enrich themselves and their shareholders.
Why give someone your money to invest to enrich themselves when you yourself have the capacity to invest this money directly and enrich yourself, and your family?
Why are you saving millions and hundreds of millions in the bank where inflation is eating it up every year when you could buy land?
Land that never depreciates. Land that is very scarce in supply yet has unlimited demand.
Buying land for your kids is the best way to secure their future because by the time they are old enough, that land has appreciated so much.
My favourite land banking story is that of Joseph Adefarasin. He bought land for £2,000.
Proceeds from the land was what he used to train all his kids in the best university abroad and when finally the land land was sold, it was sold for $5 million dollars.
But that was not all. Paul Adefarasin seeing what buying land enabled his father to accomplish followed his father’s footsteps and used ₦25 million to buy close to 10 acres at Lekki when Lekki was still what Epe and Ibeju-Lekki are today.
That land he bought for ₦25 million now is worth over ₦3 billion.
That is another added bonus of securing your children future by buying real estate as a parent.
Not only are you creating wealth for them, you are teaching them how to create wealth too.
When they are 18 years and they see the land you bought for ₦26 million when they were 5 years is now selling for N300M. What do you think will happen?
They see the land you bought for them for 6M when they were 7 years is now selling for ₦80 million when they are 20 years. What do you think will happen?
They will do the same for their kids. The first thing they will be doing when they have their child is buying a plot or more for the child.
Just like that, you have created a family tradition of buying properties for any child born. What do you think will happen when this tradition continues?
Do you think your generation will ever be poor?
Do you think your generation will ever lack in any way?
When you have created and handed down a family tradition whereby the current generation provides for the next generation.
Your generation will never ever be poor.
100 years after you are dead, they will still be looking at your picture. Kissing it and thanking you because you handed them the keys to a never ending generational wealth.
All these can start today, with you buying land for your kids now.
They will do the same for their kids and their kids will do the same for their offspring.
Creating a multi-generational wealth is not that complicated. It is actually easy and it starts with you.
More often than not here in Nigeria, investing in real estate is seen as something that is reserved only for the rich.
Those that have excess money in the bank. But that is actually not true.
As a parent, investing in real estate. Buying landed properties is not luxury.
It is your obligation to your kids. It is your duty. Do not fail at it. Don’t fail your kids.
The cost of the land now is nothing compared to what it will be in 10 years, 12 years time when your child will be old enough.
As a parent, the best thing we can do for our kids, the best thing we can do for our generation is to buy landed properties and teach them to do the same for their kids, who will continue to pass down the tradition.
If you want to secure the future of your kids. If you want to build a multi-generational wealth.
Buy that land. Today. It is your duty and obligation to your kids.
There was this lady, I met her at a conference and we started talking. Our conversation veered into real estate investments and buying land and she told me that her heart has been in investing in real estate but that she doesn’t have the money.
Curious I asked her how much she thinks she need to get a good genuine land here in Lagos, she looked at me and said, ‘a lot’. I kept pressing her to put figures on the ‘a lot’, to mention an amount and she said, ‘something like 20 million or thereabouts’.
I laughed because the truth is that you don’t need that, the only lands that are that expensive are lands in very developed areas.
You don’t need hundreds of hundreds of millions to start, you can get very good and genuine land at Epe with just ₦4 million and you don’t need to pay this money upfront, you can start with a small initial deposit, usually ₦500k then spread the rest of the money over a period of 12 months.
So this comes down to you paying just ₦500,000 initial deposit and about ₦350,000 every month for the next 12 months.
Another challenge people have with investing in properties for the future of their kids is the stigma that real estate in Nigeria has. This is because news of real estate investments that went bad spreads quickly and is much talked about on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and the rest where people who aren’t even in the real estate industry and know nothing about what is going will come up with all kinds of fear mongering and finger pointing.
To be honest, real estate investments do go bad. I won’t sugarcoat it. Real estate investments just like other investments, comes with a certain measure of risk but if you check and meet with all the people who lost money investing in real estate, they lost that money because they made one mistake. One mistake.
That mistake is acquiring that piece of land, that house without consulting qualified professionals with the experience, knowledge, insight and expertise in the real estate sector to guide him and show them which properties to buy and which ones to avoid.
They simply invested because they have the money.
That is like buying a second hand car without an experienced and capable mechanic checking it out for you to confirm that it is in a good shape and worthy of you buying it.
A big mistake. So before starting your real estate investments, to avoid losing your money. Make sure you get in touch with a qualified and capable real estate consultant.
This will make sure of two things.
Firstly, that consultant will show you not only the best genuine property to invest in but also the one that will give you the best return on your investment.
The one that will appreciate the most.
Invest in real estate, acquire genuine properties, that is the best gift you can give your children.
I am Ugochukwu.
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