When it comes to investment, most people want to invest in ventures where they can quickly maximise returns while minimising risks on their investment.

Hence, many investors are always in search of high premium investment opportunities to double their money in a few years with little or no risks.

Generally, you can group investment opportunities into two main categories: financial and physical assets.

Financial assets are market-linked products such as stocks, mutual funds, cryptocurrency, and fixed income products like Public Provident Fund, and Bank Fixed Deposits. Non-financial assets, on the other hand, are physical investments such as gold and real estate.

Among the top investment avenues for anyone looking for long term financial goals include the following:

Direct Equity Investment

This where an investor buys shares in a company, and it technically places him or her as one of the business owners. In the end, you earn dividends as a reward for your investment in the company.

Another avenue is a Fixed Deposit.

Fixed Deposit is a financial instrument provided by banks where a saver is paid high-interest rates than ‘normal’ account holder on his or her investment.

Debt Mutual Funds

Debt Mutual Funds is yet another famous avenue for investment where you invest in fixed income securities such as Treasury bills, bonds, and government securities, among others.

Gold Investment

Gold investment is mainly made by moneyed investors where they buy gold as a way of diversifying risk, primarily through the use of future contracts and derivatives. They do this because gold is a top precious metal, although it is prone to volatility as well.

Real Estate investment.

This is buying land and deciding how to use it in the future. You can decide to build apartments/rentals, put up a farm, lease it, or leave the land to appreciate over a given period and then resell it.

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And this is an investment venture that we would like to explore with you in this article.

We shall take the example of Elukana Ssentamu, a senior citizen who has lived in Mukono, outside Ugandan capital Kampala for the last 30 years.

He has seen many changes happening in his village, including its transformation into an urban area.

The other notable changes have been population explosion, and upward land prices that he says have reached unprecedented levels.

Land that would go for Shs1m (about UDS$268.87) during his youthful days, the 60-year-old says it now goes for more than Shs60m (about USD$ 16,131.99).

“The demand for land was low back then. You could easily get land at a lower price than it is today,” he says.

As the population across Africa continues to rise, so does the price of land. And someone with a business mind and thinking long term, will undoubtedly grab this opportunity to invest by purchasing plots of land.

Do you want to retire comfortably and lead a fulfilling life; a life where you worry not about rent, children’s school fees, refreshing vacations, or medical care bills.?

Do you know that by investing in land, this is possible even with your limited entrepreneurship or business skills?

According to Metcalfe (2014), in the next few years, many African villages will transform into urban centres.

Coupled with a growing middle class, which the African Development Bank, projected to grow from 355 million to 1.1 billion by 2050, land is set to become a hot cake.

This makes investing in land now a very attractive venture than ever before.

Consider the following reasons why you should save and invest in land today.

Land does not depreciate.

The size of East Africa will remain the same unless any of the countries carry out a war of conquest.

And yet, the population of these countries continues to explode every year.

This population explosion will mean that land will become very scarce and expensive. If you buy land in any part of Africa, be sure that you will recoup a considerable profit in the next few years.

As Marco Santarelli, a real estate expert opines, “real estate provides better returns on investment than the stock market without as much volatility. In real estate, your risk of loss is minimised by the length of time you hold on to your investment property,”

Housing deficits is an opportunity to grab

Africa is urbanising at a fast rate. Thirty years from today, according to PWC (2015) real estate report, 400 million people in Africa would be living in urban centres.

This migration will create a massive housing crisis that will only be addressed by having decent housing.

As of last year, according to Africa Housing Finance Yearbook, many African countries already had housing deficits. In Kampala, Uganda, for instance, approximately 80 per cent of households cannot afford to own a house. This provides an opportunity for housing investment.

To invest in housing, you will first need land. Plan to own a plot today.

Requires limited skills to manage

Unlike other businesses, managing real estate is much more comfortable. All you need to do is to carry out due diligence before buying.

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In Africa, because of the growing demand for land, there are many fraudsters out there.

But after verifying, managing land should be practically effortless. You will not need to upgrade your skills to stay relevant in managing your estate. All you will need is to reinvest a small portion of your returns in maintaining a house or fencing off your land.

You don’t need to have a lot of money to start.

Like any other investment, buying land will require money. But it is a process you can embark on slowly and achieve it in a short time.

Start saving some money to buy land.

Take advantage of areas today that are devoid of urban dwellers, in the next few years, those areas will be urbanised, and you will reap big,

Anyone who can save at least Shs.6m (about USD$1,613.2). a year can buy a plot of land and over time, increase his or her footprint in real estate.

As you earn a salary today, do not think that it will make you rich at retirement. It is the investments you make today while you are still energetic and visionary that will help you lead a comfortable life at retirement.