Plan to be a landlord

TUNDE OYEDOYIN

Tunde Oyedoyin is a London-based personal finance coach and founder of Money Intelligence Coaching Academy, a specialist academy of personal finance. He can be reached as follows: +447846089587 (WhatsApponly); E-mail: tu5oyed@gmail.com

“Anything without planning equals nothing” — Governor Dauda Lawal of Zamfara State

If there’s anything you ever gain from this weekly column, let it be that your journey to becoming a landlord began here. If you’re already a home owner, please activate the process of owning a second property.

As a sequel to last week’s edition, “Learn from others’ mistakes,” where yours truly recommended becoming a landlord as a financial goal worth having, let’s take things further by having a five-year plan. For the records, I have Arise News Morning Show to thank for providing the opening quote above.

As is one’s weekday practice, I was tagging along with the show on the second Monday of this month. But there was a pleasant surprise, in that they played the exclusive interview that one of their anchormen, Rufai Oseni had with the Governor of Zamfara State, Dauda Lawal.

By the way, that interview reinforced one’s belief that some of our leaders are cut with a different cloth from the clueless crew that we are accustomed to in the Federal Republic. Lawal, a former banker, is evidence that some of our politicians are leaving their transformational footprints of development on the sands of time. Just thought to get that off my chest.

That being said, in the spirit of disclosure, I was hearing of him for the first time during this Morning Show of last week. I doubt if the articulate first citizen of Zamfara even knows yours truly exists, much less have a column to his name. Nothing spoil, though. Just thinking aloud.

What actually precipitated referencing him here is what he said about planning, towards the end of the interview. That is what earned him his stripes here in a personal finance piece.

So, juxtaposing his words, you can’t become a landlord in 2030 without planning for it. A practical step is to have a dedicated savings account towards this venture. Start putting something there from this very month end if you haven’t been saving since January. Even if what you can presently afford is as tiny as five thousand naira, it’s better than waiting till you can save twenty thousand a month.

Finally, when you’ve saved consistently for six months, you can move to the next stage of the plan and speak to a property developer. Remember what the Zamfara Governor said, “anything without planning equals nothing”.

Assumption can really be costly

Yours truly wrote a previous piece, “Assumption can be costly”. It seemed lightning was going to strike again a second time a couple of Sundays ago.

It turned out that while at a popular station in East London, I popped in to get something for one’s dry throat. Grabbing the Mail on Sunday seemed a good idea as well. So, I added that. I got to the counter and, though I mostly don’t check the sums at independent retailers like this newsagent, I peeped at the machine on this occasion. I noticed that the shopkeeper, perhaps thinking I was looking away, punched £4.30.

Yours truly quickly said, objection my Lord, noting that the sum of the coke (£1.20) and the newspaper (£2.20) is only £3.40. The lovely gentleman described his action as a mistake. Folks, assumption can be costly.

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