When you are poor, property investment isn’t even a question. Normally the really poor people cannot even spend any money to secure a decent structure.

And this is our starting point. One should never underestimate the psychological factors involved where the pros and cons of property owning are concerned. They lie embedded in the unconscious memory of humankind.

For thousands of years, humans struggled to survive the harshness of nature. Extreme heat, extreme cold, floods, and droughts. Too much rain when it wasn’t needed, nothing, when the days of survival started to become less and less. Pain, hunger, death, and loss of dear ones resulted. Constant attacks from other humans that envied their competitors’ better positions. And the memory that brings all this back again and again.

Humans are therefore programmed to find themselves a secure base to build a home and in which to live. A place to find happiness, where one can relax and let your guard down.

A hierarchy of needs (Maslow), however, has to be considered. When one is safe, you’re happy. Happy to be out of the rain, where the winds can’t rough you up and where the sun can’t burn you. But then there will always be other people that live in better circumstances. They will have running water and flushing toilets (by way of speaking). For that, one can once again strive to better your previously satisfactory position.

So you start to pay up. Prepared to work harder in order to afford the better position. Voila! The rental market comes into existence. Somebody will own that hot spot and will ask remuneration for that favoured position.

One could be happy there for a very long time, were it not for a few other factors. Someone else can come along and offer your landlord better remuneration. Then you will have to move and might most likely find yourself in a less comfortable position than before. Someone could have moved up in the food chain in such a manner that he or she can buy out your landlord and now suddenly you have to cope with a much more demanding owner of your comfortable nest. Slowly but surely one starts to realize that the much longed for security is not yet secured.

In modern times, many people succeed to ensure that they continue to live in comfortable renting spaces. If however they don’t succeed to find other ways to ensure that their capital base increases, they in time will once again find that their security becomes threatened.

One needs money to carry medical costs, to feed children and get them through school and hopefully further education. Even when one works very hard and succeeds to pay for what is necessary, there will come a time when your capacity to fight becomes less. Should you then find that your assets cannot provide cover for your needs later in life, the time to rectify that position will have passed you by.

Property investment provides the owner with solid growth if he or she succeeds to buy at the right time in the economical cycle, at the right price and at the right place. More people have bettered their position through life by investing in property than by any other means.

There will be always people that will have to rent a house or apartment. A person buying property (at the right time, at the right price and at the right place) will be able to capitalize on this and will in time receive passive income as well as a broadening capital base.

The bottom line is not to get caught up by being a renter for too long. It will in most cases cost you too dearly. Buy at the right time, with all the checks and balances in place. There are enough property investment professionals around that will be able to provide solid information and advice.