Testimonial; Juliet (Season 12)

 

I attended Centonomy last year from October. I will tell you I came knowing I was coming to get a pat on my back for a job well done so far. Shock on me! We had just bought our first apartment on mortgage and had just lived in it for a month before the October Centonomy class started.

Anyway, there were VERY many shocks and my mouth was constantly agape in EVERY class. Yes, and here I was coming for pats on my back waiting to be told “Well done, good and faithful servant!”. What I got were slaps!! But good slaps. So one of the many light bulb moments was the realization/discovery that our apartment was not an asset because first, it was on mortgage, meaning it was the bank’s!!! And secondly it was not bringing us any money therefore could not be called an asset.

Fast forward to February after months of marinating and stewing in the class notes, fighting denial, finally accepting the truth and doing more research by reading up some finance books (you are right, learning NEVER stops!!). Come Friday last week my husband (who also attended the class) and I got radical. We needed to desperately increase our income streams. Not because we were struggling but just to put our new knowledge to good use and retire earlier than planned. Our first project was pig farming but most things were not in our control, for example we are depending on my mother to lease to us a portion of her shamba and she has asked for time to “think about it”. It had been a month already and we could not continue waiting indefinitely.

Enter Alternative Income Stream 2: Rent the apartment. I am currently unable to drive my three year old daughter from our current home to her school due to health issues. We had two options, either:

1.     rent out the apartment and move closer to my daughter’s kindergarten; or

2.     hire a driver; or

3.     get a much smaller car that was an automatic.

Our predicaments:

1.     We can’t afford to buy another car unless we can sell the one we have.

2.     We can’t hire a driver because we can’t afford it without giving up some things.

Moving her to another school closer to our current home was out of the question. The only option left was to rent out the apartment and move closer to her school. We had watched one of Centonomy’s open day clips where the CEO of Resolution Heath Peter Nduati I believe said that “you should not have a relationship with inanimate objects!”. This meant that in as much as we were in loooooove with our new apartment, we couldn’t keep holding on to it. We had to put it to work! Also, the apartment was more of a flosset (did I get the spelling right?) more than anything. We were high on the looks from our family and friends when they came to see the house. Heheheheheeh!!

Now, we could either rent it out furnished or unfurnished. The current rates for an unfurnished 3 bedroom apartment in my estate is KES55,000/=. That wouldn’t be sufficient as our mortgage payment is around KES59,000/ a month (staff rate). This would not make the house an asset but a further liability!

If we rented the apartment out furnished we could get between KES100,000-120,000/=. This would entail letting go of all the furniture and gadgets that we had poured money into thinking we would live here for years. My husband had the toughest time accepting to let go of the TV and the fridge! LOL! It means he has to downgrade to a smaller TV and a smaller fridge and probably sit on cushions for a while cause we will leave all our furniture behind.

I tried doing some research on furnished apartments in Kenya and I stumbled on a site where homeowners actually rent out their homes on a daily basis. Imagine that! This must have been God hard at work J

We advertised the apartment for rent (furnished) at the website on Friday (7 days ago) and we already have guests booked and confirmed for 5 days in May and 17 days in December. And 4 other prospective guests for April and March. On full occupancy we can get a minimum of $1415 a month which is more than enough to pay the mortgage, rent to the smaller and cheaper apartment that we will move to and monthly installments to our daughter’s kindergarten (if we chose to direct the extra funds to her fees)! This is the link to our advertisement https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/5377770?s=MZe9.

The rates are $95 per day, a discounted rate of $350 per week and $1415 per month.

One thing’s for sure, Centonomy has challenged us to think outside the box. We never would have fathomed having our mortgaged home as a source of income and not in the way we are doing it.

Thank you! This is just the beginning! More things are in store for us. More discoveries and “AHA” moments are still coming.