There is a phrase I have come to respect more than almost any other in this business, and it is one most people are afraid to say out loud.
“Not yet.”
In a culture where building your own house is treated as one of life’s biggest milestones, right up there with marriage and sending your children to good schools, saying “not yet” can feel like admitting defeat. Family members ask when the roofing will start. Friends who have already built their own houses compare notes at gatherings. Nobody wants to be the one still “planning” while everyone else is pouring concrete.
But I have seen, over and over, what happens when people treat “not yet” as failure instead of wisdom. And I have seen what happens when they don’t.
A plot that looked perfect
Let me tell you about a client who came to me with land she had already bought in the Ashanti Region. She liked the location, she could afford the asking price, and by the time she brought me in, she had already paid for it in full.
The land had a site plan and an indenture, so on paper, everything looked in order. But when we started asking deeper questions, about the chief who sold it, about whether there were any outstanding disputes in the area, things became less straightforward. We were told there had been some chieftaincy related issues around that particular stretch of land, and that some parcels nearby were under family ownership rather than the traditional authority she had assumed.
By then, the money had already left her hands.
Worse still, the plot itself was sloping, something that had not seemed serious when she first walked it and liked what she saw. Once construction began and we had to deal with the levels, the cost of the substructure alone increased by roughly 30 percent over what had originally been budgeted. For someone with a fixed amount of money to spend, that 30 percent did not appear from nowhere. It came directly out of money that was meant for finishing, for doors, for tiles, for the things that make a house feel like a home.
Here is the question I kept asking myself afterward: what if she had said “not yet” at the point of falling in love with that plot? Not yet, until I have brought in a surveyor to check the slope. Not yet, until a lawyer has gone through every document properly. Not yet, until I understand exactly what this land will cost me to build on, not just what it costs to buy.
That pause would have cost her almost nothing. The absence of it cost her a significant share of her building budget.
“Not yet” is not the same as “never”
I want to be very clear about something, because this is where people get confused. Saying “not yet” is not the same as abandoning your dream. It is not weakness, and it is certainly not failure.
A useful “not yet” comes with homework attached. It sounds like this: “Not yet, until I have confirmed my finances can survive six months without income.” Or, “Not yet, until my spouse and I have actually agreed on the size of this house, instead of assuming we want the same thing.” Or simply, “Not yet, until I have a proper plan instead of just a feeling that now is the time.”
Someone who takes six months, or even a year, to get these things right before breaking ground is not behind. They are, in almost every case I have seen, ahead of the person who started building out of pure excitement and is now three years into a half finished house that has become the subject of whispered conversation at family gatherings.
What professional bodies understand about this
This idea, that readiness is built rather than rushed, shows up well beyond the world of construction. At a past induction and annual conference of the Chartered Institute of Leadership and Governance, Ghana Chapter, held at the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre in Accra, one of the speakers, Brigadier General Frimpong, reminded newly inducted members that trustworthiness in leadership “was not acquired overnight but built over the years.”
I think about that statement often in the context of building a house, because the same principle applies with surprising precision. Trust in a land transaction is not acquired overnight either. It is built through searches, through due diligence, through the patience to let a lawyer and a surveyor do their work before money changes hands. Trust in a budget is not acquired overnight. It is built through getting real quotations, through understanding what a quoted price actually includes, through resisting the urge to just start and “see how far the money goes.”
A professional body built around leadership and governance understood something that applies directly to homeowners: the things worth having are rarely available on the timeline our excitement demands.
How to use “not yet” well
If you are standing at the edge of a decision right now, whether it is land you are about to pay for, a contractor you are about to hire, or a construction start date you have already announced to family, ask yourself honestly whether you are moving at the pace of wisdom or the pace of pressure.
A good “not yet” always has an end date and a reason attached to it. “Not yet, until the search at the Lands Commission comes back.” “Not yet, until I have three quotations to compare, not just one.” “Not yet, until my contingency fund actually exists, rather than being a number I hope to save later.” That is not drifting. That is discipline wearing the clothes of patience.
The house you are dreaming of will still be there in six months. The money you save by pausing to check, to verify, to plan properly, will still be in your pocket instead of swallowed by a slope nobody checked, or a document nobody read closely enough.
Sometimes the most important thing you can build before you build your house is the patience to say, honestly and without shame, not yet.
This post draws on stories and lessons from my book, From Land to Home: How to Finish Your House on Budget Without Being Cheated. A free companion toolkit, including a Land Inspection Checklist and Land Due Diligence Checklist to help you pause and verify before you pay, is available at www.asarebediakoadams.com.