If you are not very careful, building your investment house may cost you more than giving it to trusted experts to build for you.
There is more to building than having :-
- A reliable contractor
- Procuring the materials yourself
- Knowing the exact quantity and type of material to use.

You need to interact with experts in this field as you cannot just dabble into a venture you know nothing about. You have to interact with reliable experts and home owners, and you will have a a basket of opinions which is up to you to streamline and arrive at the best decision.

The bottom line is to build quality house at affordable price, technically speaking to have a good X bob per square meter.


Find below an extract from a Ugandan Real Estate Entrepreneur I stumbled on during my studies on this subject matter.

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[i]Uganda: Inspiring Other Youths
Beatrice Wanja
26 June 2010
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After getting training with Enterprise Uganda during her senior six vacation, Judy Ineku, solicited for Shs4m from family members to start low-housing units. Beatrice Wanja caught up with her and shares her story.

At her age of 24, Judy Ineku is way ahead of her peers. In November 2006 during her senior six vacation she started IJB Real estate. Without any source of capital to start her venture, the only thing she had was her desire to succeed.

"At the time I was in my Senior Six vacation, waiting to join university. I attended a business training programme at Enterprise Uganda," says Ineku who works at Enterprise Uganda as the marketing executive.

According to her the training served as an eye opener because it covered five management areas that one must master in order to create, nurture and run a successful enterprise. These included: finance, human resource, marketing, operations and leadership.

"I was the youngest participant amongst the 43 women sponsored by IFC to attend the training. I was also the only one without a running business at the time of the training. Initially, fellow participants thought I had just come to enjoy hotel food that was served daily," Ms Ineku says. "True, the food was good. However, they did not know that I had received a powerful secret to success at an opportune time. Everything changed for me."

The training inspired her for several reasons. She comes from a family where they own and let out low-cost housing units. "I therefore had an idea on what it takes to manage such houses. With the training, I decided to start a project of similar houses on my own. Secondly, having been a head girl at both my Ordinary and Advanced secondary school levels, I got a desire to channel my leadership talent into providing low-cost housing units to the many dwellers staying in Kampala slums," she explains.

Motivation
However her greatest motivation was, listening to seasoned women entrepreneurs share their varied business challenges and successes during the training which alleviated the fears she had about starting a business.

This was mainly because most of these women had started with little amount of capital, relying largely on personal effort and consistent saving and re-investment of the limited initial profits. "To me the training was a double gain: getting excellent theory as well as practical advice and counsel from women entrepreneurs."

How she started
After the workshop she decided to venture into the real estate business. Although she had no capital of her own she raised the initial investment of Sh4 m from her family members.
Due to limited, resources she sought a cheaper piece of land in a newly opened residential area, in Seguku, off the city centre. She knew that starting from such a location suited the kind of housing units she wanted to construct. It also fitted the target market she had in mind. Four years later Ineku owns seven well-planned low-cost housing units on Entebbe road.

Challenges
Out of the seven units which are self-contained, four are finished and occupied at the moment. She is doing internal fitting for the remaining three. But this does not mean that constructing her housing unit has been without struggle, Ms Ineku used her entire capital to secure the piece of land meaning that she did not have funds to purchase construction materials and had to look for an alternative.

"To get the local building materials, I looked at what could be available within my own piece of land. That is how I got villagers who had ever brick laid to come and make some for me at my site," Ms Ineku says.

She adds that before selecting any villager to take on the assignment, each had to confirm that they had done a similar job somewhere else. "I always cross-checked any claims of experience before signing up any employee".

Because she didn't have enough money to pay the labourers', she motivated them with incentives like good second-hand shirts. "I also took part in most activities," Inek says adding that, "I always had lunch with them. I still eat with them whenever I am at the site. This is not a common practice by tycoons in Kampala. I have become talk of the area, not only because of my project, but because of my gender, education and attitude towards them."

In Uganda it's believed that, to be involved in the construction of planned housing units, you must have got funds through a mortgage or a retirement package. "My journey as a young female entrepreneur is receiving interest from the youth and elders because I have challenged the common theory people hold regarding entering the real estate business. I know many other Ugandans shall be motivated to go into any economic sector as I continue sharing my testimony," she says.

Achievement

Ineku is involved in promoting entrepreneurship and private enterprise amongst the youths, something she does through unconventional means. Being a youth has helped her learn how to reach other youths through different sports and open markets.

Today, Ineku shares her experience as an entrepreneur and has become a recognised consultant among youths entrepreneurship programmes in the country.

For Ms Ineku who has started constructing her eighth housing unit, the sky is the limit, to her the right attitude is everything if an entrepreneur is going to succeed[/i]