Our Friends Bought Four Bedrooms. We Bought Two and Owe Nobody, and I Would Do It Again

A reader writes:

I am writing because my wife said I should stop telling this story to every man at the barber shop and tell it somewhere it might help somebody. So here it is.

Tanisha and I married at twenty-six. Both of us grew up in houses where money was always tight and always argued about. My father had a truck loan that followed us for most of my childhood, and I can still remember the sound of him on the phone asking for “just one more week”. Tanisha’s mother lost a house in the country when she fell behind, and she never really got over it. So when we got married we made one promise to each other that was not in the vows. Whatever we lived in, we would not be owing on it for thirty years.

That sounds very noble written down. In practice it meant six years of renting two rooms at the back of a lady’s house in Spur Tree, eating a lot of chicken back and saying no to things. I am a mechanic and Tanisha works in the accounts office at a hardware store. Neither of us earns big money. We had a partner-draw going the whole time, and every time it came round to us it went straight into the account. No barbecue for my thirtieth. No trip to Florida when her cousin got married. I will not lie and say we were always cheerful about it.

When we finally had enough, it was not enough for what we wanted. The houses we liked in the schemes near Mandeville were well past what we had saved, and the banker was very happy to tell us how much more we could borrow. I remember sitting in her office and the figure she said. I felt something like hunger. Tanisha squeezed my hand under the desk and we walked out and sat in the car and did not speak for a while.

What we bought in the end was a small, old, two-bedroom concrete house on a road most people from outside the district have never heard of. The zinc on the kitchen side was rusting through, the bathroom had a crack you could put your finger in, and the yard was bush. The owner had moved to her daughter in Connecticut and wanted it gone. We paid for it with what we had, with a little left over for a lawyer, and nothing owed to anybody. Nothing.

The same year, two of our closest friends bought a four-bedroom house in a new scheme. Beautiful place. Tiles right through, a kitchen island, a garage. We went to the housewarming and I stood on their patio with a plate of curry goat and I felt small. I am being honest. Tanisha’s mother made a comment on the drive home about how some people know how to live, and Tanisha did not speak to her for a week.

The first two years were not glamorous. We fixed the roof first, because I have seen what water does. Then the bathroom. I did a lot of the work myself on Sundays after church with my cousin Dwayne, and we paid a proper electrician for the wiring because I know my limits. When our son came along, the second bedroom that had been my “office” (a desk and a fan) became his room, and there were nights I felt the walls closing in. Christmas with both families was people sitting on the verandah wall and on buckets. My mother loved it. Tanisha’s mother brought her own chair.

Then, three years in, the garage I worked at closed. The owner got sick and his children did not want the business. I was out of steady work for almost five months. I did jobs from the yard, fixed neighbours’ cars under the mango tree, but some weeks it was very little. And this is the part I want people to hear. We were frightened, but we were never frightened of losing the house. There was no letter coming from the bank. Nobody could take it. Tanisha’s salary covered food and light and the school fees, and we tightened everything else. I cannot tell you what that did for my peace of mind. I slept. Not every night, but most nights.

I found out later that our friends with the four bedrooms had a hard season around the same time. I will not say more because it is their business, and they are still our friends, and I do not think they were foolish. They made a different choice with different jobs and a different family behind them. But I know which kind of hard season I would rather have.

We have been in the house seven years now. I have my own small garage down the road, rented. We have added a proper back room with a louvre window and put a grille and a gate on the front. The yard has callaloo, two pepper trees and a little concrete slab where our boy rides his bicycle in circles. The next plan is a wider verandah, and we are saving for it the same way we saved for everything else, slowly and in cash.

Do I still want a bigger house some days? Yes. When my brother-in-law comes from Florida and says, “So when are you moving up?”, I still feel it a little. But the verse Pastor preached on the month we moved in has stayed with me. It is from Hebrews 13, about keeping your life free from the love of money and being content with what you have, because God has said He will never leave you nor forsake you. I used to think contentment meant not wanting anything. Now I think it means knowing what you have is enough to stand on while you wait.

To any young couple sitting in a banker’s office feeling that hunger I felt: I am not saying never borrow. I am saying ask yourself what you want the house to give you. For us it was sleep. Two bedrooms turned out to be plenty for that.

— Kemar, Manchester

Editor’s note

Kemar’s letter is careful not to judge his friends, and we want to be careful too. Borrowing to buy a home is a sensible and ordinary step for many families, and the right size of loan depends on income, job security, family support and much else. What stands out here is not the rule he kept but the question he asked: what do we need this house to do for us? Naming that early, before the viewings and the lender’s figures, helped a young couple choose with their eyes open. It also gave them room to breathe when work dried up. Whatever you decide, a margin you can live with is worth more than a room you rarely use.

This article is general information only and is not financial, legal, tax or other professional advice. Please speak to a qualified professional about your own circumstances.

Reader letters may be edited for length and clarity, and names and identifying details are changed.

Follow Jamaica Homes on Youtube @jamaicahomes and Instagram @jamaica_homes and on Facebook @jamaicahomesnews Send us a message or email us at onlinefeedback@jamaica-homes.com or editor@jamaica-homes.com