Creation of wealth

Since I am on a Pension, I am of the opinion that I need to create my own further pension type income! The easiest way for me to do this is to invest in property, then in 20 or so years time, the bonds will be repaid and I can earn rental income with no attached bond repayments. As an accountant, I figure that:-
Rental will always increase at least as fast as the inflation rate
The property will always be of physical worth - no matter how the economy may decline, the property in bricks and concrete will always be there! The recent downfall of the Zim Dollar is an example. Inflation was running at hundreds of per cent - a day! Property prices therefore increased by the same amount!

Sure, bonds are not free, but when the bond rate is 8% per annum, it pays to have a bond! If nothing else, this bond rate is a pre tax rate, as bond costs are tax deductible. For me (maximum tax rate) the effective rate is lower even than the inflation rate! I also found that the value of my unit has increased by pretty well R 100 000 in the 8 months that I have owned the property! You cannot get that sort of return in the banks. If the worst happens and the local currency is scrapped, there will still be a pile of bricks and morter that can be sold! I know that when our family left Zimbabwe, we had to leave money in a blocked account! Then the Government devalued the local currency by knocking zeros off of the buying power. Eventually, the value was eliminated completely! It may have been better to invest in a flat somewhere, and that would still have been of value! If I remember, when I was in the Army, you could buy a fairly decent flat for $ 15 000. When we left, $1 = R1 = US$1. If we had bought a flat, it would still be worth money, even though they knocked 6 zeros off of the value!

I am half tempted to buy an ocean going yacht! Then if we have to abandon SA (I dont feel that we will though) we have:-

An affordable way of leaving AND
An asset of worth that can be transported.

When we left Zimbabwe, we had a caravan, that we lived in until we could rent somewhere! It was only years later, Andy and I could invest in a plot of land (it was a sale after repossession by the bank) and we could bond that and build a home!

It is quite a load to own a unit that is not in the town where I live, but it works for me! I was interested in buying in Durban, but that is a bit out of the way! There are flats available on the beachfront, but these are not likely to attract the returns that I am getting in Richards Bay. That is a high growth area and I was extremely fortunate to find a reasonably priced (bought off-plan) unit! The original developer built 20 units, and has just started on the next stage of the development - 30 units. I have reserved one of these units, and I really think that I cannot go wrong! The development is in Via Cassiandra, that runs pretty well along the back of the Boardwalk - the local Mall that is kind of large for Zululand!