Oluwakemi Adeyemo: Real Estate Investment will Meet All Your Needs

Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy divides human needs into three broad categories. The basic needs category highlights safety and physiological needs such as food, water, and rest. The second category has our need for esteem, love and belonging – these are psychological needs. The final category has self-fulfilment and self-actualisation needs.

I like to think that human needs, as presented in these three broad categories, are first emotional. Remember that saying about a hungry man being an angry man? Although we need food to survive, food also triggers intense emotions. Meeting these needs deliver emotional fulfilment and reward. The amazing thing is that real estate meets needs all these needs. I’m going to show you how, but first, what is real estate?

Investopedia describes real estate as the land along with any permanent improvements attached to the land, whether natural or man-made, including water, trees, minerals, buildings, homes, fences, and bridges. This description shows how convertible real estate is.

The Basic Needs
These are also physiological needs: food, water, warmth, rest, security and safety. Food and water are (majorly) from the ground. Warmth and rest do not happen in isolation – we derive them from a subset of real estates, such as a built property. Likewise, within a bounded area is where you feel safe and secure. When you provide basic needs to your family or other people, whether they come free or you paid for them, you derive a sense of fulfilment and self-actualisation.

This is why it feels terrible when parents are unable to provide shelter for their wards. Especially when these wards are still financially vulnerable. It feels more terrible losing your shelter when your ability to earn an income has now reduced as a result of advancement in age or other reasons. When your basic needs are met, you are in a positive emotional state and you get motivated to be more productive.

The Psychological Needs
Ever wondered why some people buy houses on certain streets and neighbourhood? While there are several reasons, chief on the list is because they want to belong, remain within a certain social class.

Psychological needs are the ‘esteem, belonging and love’ needs. We crave these emotions at varying degrees and want to have them fulfilled. Real estate is a tool that is used to meet these needs. You have been using real estate to meet these needs and you do not even know it! You get better self-esteem or have a sense of belonging to a certain class when you occupy or use real estate in certain locations.

There is also the case of perception. Sometimes, people will only regard you based on your house or property investment location. In many cases, people will only do business with you because your office has a certain address. Apart from the perks of having a Victoria Island business address, it is also to meet these psychological needs.

The Self-fulfilment Needs
Self-actualisation is achieving one’s full potential or attaining a high level of creativity. The Dangote Foundation once donated ₦1,200,000,000 worth of student accommodation to the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. Going by the history of the foundation’s activities, finding a deeper level of fulfilment is at the core. By that donation, he has contributed to a people-centred purpose.

While donating accommodation facilities may have given him a sense of fulfilment, a basic need for the students is being met using real estate. The students will be getting an education with some level of comfort. It then becomes easy to get more creative because there is now shelter and a level of security.

If you have not taken investing in real estate serious before now, it is high time that you begin to. It is a convertible tool that meets almost all human needs. Real estate makes being a human possible – it delivers emotional fulfilment and supports the essence and existence of life. Therefore, you should pay attention to how you invest in real estate and convert it to meet your needs, especially if you are not satisfied with the status quo or you are ambitious. Extracting optimum value from real estate does not happen by chance, so you need to be intentional about investing in real estate. Here are a few tips:

• Check what you know about investing in real estate and deriving value from it.
• Be enlightened about real estate investment, even if you only plan to buy a home.
• Read biographies of people who have legitimately gotten value from real estate. Remember it is universally convertible.
• Have a clear and relevant goal about what you wish to achieve using real estate, then find out how to best achieve that goal.