A brief background into why property is one of the investment options that made sense for us.
A brief background
I suppose a thing that people often wonder about is why I got into property and what I am hoping to achieve.
I grew in a single parent household for most of my life. My mum is a strong, smart, no nonsense woman. She's always wanted what's best for my sisters and me. She's always done the best for us with what she has and we have never been short of anything.
She always told us kids that she set the bar in her time but what would make her most proud is if we could then pick up the baton and take it further than she ever went.
"Have the courage to live a life true to yourself, not the life others expect of you."
Following mum's advice
People will always give well meaning advice.
Mum grew up in the generation of "go to school, get good grades, get a job, do your best and gradually move up the ladder".
It was sound advice to a degree. We were never entrepreneurial in our immediate, family. If I look back, I think maybe 1 or 2 aunties or cousins have ever run a business of any description, let alone successful ones. So as you can imagine, business, let alone women in business was never really part of my paradigm.
For a long time, I listened to mum's well-meaning advice. I went to university, earned 2 undergraduate degrees, got a good job that I like, that helps people, settled down, got a mortgage, job done right? Wrong.
So what changed?
My thinking started to change a little bit when I gave birth to two girl children. Was I going to pass on those same messages in this ever changing world?
Diego my husband was a little different to me. He became unsettled with our life as it was sooner than I did. He was working in a job he loved, give or take a bit of drama here or there, he's really good at it, making fairly good money, so happy days. The problem was, to keep that money coming in, he quite often had to be away from me and the kids doing overtime etc. Something had to give. He started looking into various other options and actually tried a few things.
The one thing I saw him get really excited about that really made me sit up and pay attention, was property investment and the potential long term benefits.
Now I knew about houses, my mum had told me, one of the goals in life was to buy a house. Great, but some information was missing within that. We jointly chose to follow up on this and to concentrate on educating ourselves and surrounding ourselves with like minded people and oh wow! A whole new world of potential opened up.
For me personally, I am looking at my girls. Their world is going to be a lot different from mine and my mum's. I'm not sure what things are going to look like for them as black women. I just want to be sure that they are never short of anything (mum already set that bar) and even more. I want to lead them by example and to show them what is possible.
So what do we want that property gives or will give once we have our business fully automated and systemised?
1. A relatively passive income stream which will give us more choices in our lives.
2. Cashflow and long term growth which will take us to financial freedom.
3. Better returns on our hard earned money and savings than what we are currently getting from the likes of the bank.
4. It's less risky and easier to understand (well for me anyway) than the stock market
5. It's less time intensive than a traditional business. It is time intensive now while we are building and scaling but the view is to take the foot off the gas a lot sooner than we would in our 9-5s. We will have our time back to spend with the kids and to do all those other things we have brewing in background.
6. Last but most certainly not least, It's a way to benefit others around us as well. You should never underestimate the power of sharing what you do and what you know. There may just be what someone else needs to hear at a specific time. We are working with people for instance who want to get into property but perhaps don't have the know how, or don't have the time or just don't have the inclination to start or to be a landlord but still want some of those benefits that property investing has to offer.
We speak to all kinds of people. Some we are able to help, others not. You just don't know until you have a conversation with someone.
All that is left to say I think is, if you are on the fence about getting involved in property, don't be. Jump in! Get your feet wet! And if there is anything at all that I can do to help you then please just shout up.