BUY A HOUSE OR BUILD ONE??

A basic necessity for man as we all know is shelter amidst others like food and clothing. Give a man a roof over his head and you have solved one if not the greatest of his needs. Once one reaches that stage of independence and financial stability and by financial stability, I mean being financially buoyant enough to afford a personal apartment, the question then becomes whether or not to buy a ready-made house or build one from scratch.

Analysing these two choices, one would discover that each choice has its own advantage but in real terms, the advantage of one outweighs that of the other. The best alternative here will be to go for a ready-made house. What if the ready-made house does not meet up with the standard of the dream house you’ve always wanted? You might want to ask. Well, while this question lingers in your mind you might also want to consider some factors to be put into consideration while making this decision.

1. Availability of land: In a country such as our beloved Nigeria, it is no news that most people who are in dire need of land might not easily get it due to some surrounding circumstances and when they get it and leave for a long time without construction, such land might become liable to acquisition for overriding public use by the Government with little or no compensation paid to the owner of the land.

2. Time Frame: we all know that the time taken to build a house from start to finish is nothing compared to the benefits accrued to getting a ready-made house. Looking at our surroundings today, you’ll come across several unfinished projects as a result of lack of funding to keep the construction going. If investigations are to be made as regards the cost incurred in putting up the building to that unfinished state, it will not be surprising to realise that the amount of money spent and the amount required to complete it will actually buy a house with much as left over.

3. Location: With the economic trend in our society; where big industries and organizations tend to be situated in strategic locations, most people might want to go for an accommodation that offers easy accessibility to their place of work. In this scenario, building a house in most cases is completely out of the question as there are numerous ready-made houses built to taste waiting for prospective buyers.

In addition to these stated reasons, buying a house takes off the stress of site inspection, dealing with insincere builders, acquiring lands situated in areas liable to acquisition or demolition by the Government in future and going broke right in the middle of the construction process.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alara Oluwaseyi is a writer and blogger at alarakaris.wordpress.com. A graduate of Estate Management from FUTA, she simply enjoys painting her world with words.