House ownership and VALUES

I was reading the other day a piece about house ownership in the UK and the perceptions of the population in general the ownership of your own house.

One of the things that strikes me is how much owning a house is so important in the UK. That is usually a sign to you and others that you are doing well in life. I must I was "trapped" in the same thought.

In other countries, like Germany and Italy, owning your own house is not one of the main priorities of the population throughout their lifes. In Portugal for many years this wasn't as well. Now a lot of people there also want to "own" a house.

The fact that you don't actually own the house, until you paid it off completely doesn't seem to detract us to go and buy it. The fact that until the day the mortgage is paid off the mortgage provider actually owns the house doesn't stop us to take the plunge.

Similarly you end up paying almost double what you initially bought the house for with the compound interest. We tend to look at a house as an asset, but until is paid off it actually is a liability. I am currently finishing reading Robert Kiyosaki book "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and thoroughly advise you to read it as well, as explains in simple terms assets and liabilities and how you can change your life around by bein "financially intelligent".

The fact of the matter is that this general mentality in the UK, and indeed in other countries as well, is that owning a house is part of the Values of the people born, or living, in that country. Is sometimes one the highest values most people have.

So where do you get your values from? I will enlighten you on my next post about that and how you can get better values to help on your success and happiness throughout life!

Until then, all the best,

Paulo