Mark Zuckerberg, a man who is worth $97B, took a mortgage to pay off his $5M home. He could have simply paid it off; however he preferred to spread the cost over 30 years while using the rest of the money to grow this wealth even more.
I remember when someone tried to shame me by saying "No man gives Mavis money o. Mavis works for her money". In her poverty ridden mind she believed that she was making so much sense. Because that is what we believe in Nigeria. We believe that the money we did not work for is more valuable than the money we toiled for. That's why people aspire to marry rich people or are constantly bitter for not being born into a wealthy family.
In Nigeria, those are the two main ways you can move from one social class to another, or you can maintain the social class in which you were born. For the record, the person who made that statement was born into a rich family. But as soon as the father died, the wealth vanished. But today we are not talking about the inability to sustain a family business over the course of generations. The focus today is on how we can't think of wealth as something we ought to build, but instead as something that just happens to us at once.
A country where you cannot grow your wealth through your work is a failed country. The Italian constitution starts like this: "Italy is a republic built on work". Our teacher explained the meaning to be "Every citizen has the right to a job".
The disparity between the rich and the poor in Nigeria is also caused by the lack of mortgages and financing. If you don't have the exact amount of what a commodity cost, you cannot buy it. That is poverty. It is not something to be proud of.
I see many Nigerians making fun of abroad residents who buy houses and post online.
"Na credit you take buy am".
"You never even pay finish. You dey advertise wetin nor be your own".
You are living in a failed system, and you are making fun of somebody who lives in a functioning system.
A house is an asset. One of the most valuable assets you can ever invest in. Imagine if as a minimum wage earner who makes N30,000 a month, you were able to get a mortgage of N1,440,000 - N1,800,000. Couldn't that buy you an apartment? As someone who earns N100K, you could get up to N6,000,000 in mortgage. Wouldn't that be enough to buy yourself a house? These may not be your dream homes, but houses appreciate in value over the years. You can sell and re-buy until you finally achieve your desired status. Right now, you cannot even start from anywhere, but you will open your mouth to make fun of people who get mortgages to buy their houses.
When the time comes to buy a house, I will get a mortgage. I could be able to buy that house ten times over, but I will still get a mortgage. I'd rather deposit 20-30% of the total cost, spread the rest in monthly payments to be made over the years, than become hundreds of thousands poorer in just one day.
Everybody deserves the right to build wealth.
No comments:
Post a Comment