Sabiiti Herbert

With precision, I recall an episode I shared on the 24th October, 2019 about the levitation of savings and investment clubs that has since swept across Africa and Uganda in particular. Events that only used to be social gatherings now turned into saving and investing clubs and later saccos. It is as if Uganda’s young, middle aged groups have woken up from the valley of procrastination.

If you subscribe to at least 2 investment clubs, you may realize they each have (a) member(s) who have shared traits, they have the natural ability to mobilize funds to develop condominiums housing and live communally as opposed to the traditional stand alone housing.

Most people construct houses hurriedly because they are tired of those monthly memos ‘Hello, hope this finds you well.’ or the regular knocks, calls, texts by landlords at the turn of the month, but roll down a week, months and then a few years, one starts their journey of dislike, they begin to see everything wrong with their houses – mostly when their income status changes. And right there, is where the condominium idea yields benefit. You can start, later move in to your dream house, or call it a country (retirement) home and then rent out the condo.

There are people who construct big, quite humongous houses only to wish they could down size to a smaller facility when Empty Nest clocks in – a story for another episode.

So, I thought you may want to look at some Pros for the Condo;

Maintenance cost of condo is way lower than maintaining a standalone house. From garbage collection to compound maintenance and areas of common use.

There is also a security cost you have to bear in mind when you stay in standalone houses. The worry of break ins at night, hiring security guards and purchase of security dogs are some of the costs you must incur with a standalone option. It’s also common knowledge that during festival seasons, most people who stay in standalone houses, hire private security firms or individuals to guard their homes while they hit the road for the countryside.

There is however less risk of break-in for the Condo-system, folks live in proximity, you have several eyes watching and an organized society to turn to for help incase of an emergency.

If you find the will to mobilize as a group, you may buy land that’s close to the main road to ease accessibility. Talk of transport to and fro workplaces or the city center. Going solo, means you will have to real dig from your pockets to buy land near the road.

I therefore and on any day would encourage young families, groups who share values and interests to mobilize funds, buy authentic land for condominium development.
There are some other secondary benefits too, like agreeing on where to take children to school, if they can be picked by one cab, parents using one or two cars instead of six to go to work if individual times are synchronized, etc. The universal JOY of any parent regardless of their age, is to see their children make strides of growth and go on to “do well” in Life. It all starts from how children are raised, the values and beliefs they learn or take on in life are ultimately influenced by the environment that surrounds them.

If you have an organized group, you do have a chance to cut cost by a huge margin but also to revive the idea of living as a community – an idea that’s does not alien to the African soul_

sabiiti10@gmail.com
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