How to buy a house for less than half its price- Three

At the interest rate operating at the time (13.25 percent) an additional $14 per month would reduce the life of my bond by approximately eight-and-a-half years.

The surprises just kept on coming as I continued to search for solutions. Unfortunately I could not try any of the solutions because I was transferred to Bulawayo where, once again, I became a lodger.

My wife stayed behind, so I had to pay for two households. Worse still, she was retrenched, leaving me the sole breadwinner. When she joined me in Bulawayo, we had to, once again, rent a full house.

It was when we were asked by the owner of the house to leave, at very short notice, that my wife and I agreed that we should buy another place of our own. We just could not allow ourselves to be tossed around by others.

We decided to go for a flat because they were much cheaper than houses then. Prices in Bulawayo were still depressed because of the dissident war and this was a blessing for us.

We therefore got a two bedroomed flat for $17 000. The flat was on sectional title and a deposit of $2 500 was required. We, however, put down $4 250 or 25 percent because we had another mortgage and we told this to the estate agent handling the sale of the flats.

The building society, however, came back to us and said we could not get a second mortgage because of the government’s one-person-one-mortgage policy.

I simply fumed. I told them there was no way I could sell a house to buy a flat. Moreover, the house was in Gweru and the flat was in Bulawayo and I was working in Bulawayo. Was I expected to commute between Gweru and Bulawayo if I wanted to keep my house, which I wanted to?

I was really desperate because I had already moved to the flat and had been staying there for two months. The phone was already connected.

As the last punch I queried whether the building society was applying this rule to everyone because I could prove there were some people in Bulawayo who had been given mortgages for more than one house in Bulawayo.

The building society backed down, but as if to fix me, it insisted that I should pay 40 percent down. This meant that I had to pay a deposit of $6 800. I had already paid $4 250 to the agent and therefore needed an extra $2 550. I ran around and got the extra money and got my flat in December 1987.

The higher deposit was also a blessing in disguise because I ended up getting a loan for $10 200.

It was then that I put all that I had learnt into practice.

I paid off the flat in December 1989, exactly in two years.

In December 1990, I paid off the house in Gweru, exactly seven years after I had bought it.

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