Resilience before riches.

Not betting everything on one trade

In my early forties, after some fifteen years building a business, one thing became obvious: our entire financial future rested on a single engine. We wanted resilience first, and eventually a degree of financial freedom.

The first step was blockchain technology. It pushed us to understand finance, investing and above all debt: how it breaks some people and makes others wealthy. Many books and many sources later, one conclusion stood out: income property deserved a place.

What our own home taught us

In our late twenties, with help from family, we were able to buy our home just as interest rates were low. That small mortgage payment gave us what a growing family needs most: room to breathe. We did not need two full-time jobs to keep afloat. That is when we understood that well-chosen debt is not a burden but a freedom.

Money erodes, property endures

Inflation exists, even in Switzerland: every year the franc buys a little less. Property prices partly follow that movement, so a building is first a store of value.

Then comes the mechanism that makes the difference. With a mortgage, the rent pays the interest and pays down the debt. As Robert Kiyosaki puts it, when you borrow to buy an asset, you let someone else pay it back. Month after month, the share of the building you own grows.

And if you are diligent and keep the apartments let, the building generates cash flow that covers all its costs and can, in time, pay those who carry it.

A building does not make you rich overnight. It protects, it repays, it builds, slowly, as long as you look after it.

But it is not for the faint-hearted

We will not sell dreams here. The learning curve is steep. There was a storm that took two apartments out of use for two years, insurers who had to be chased again and again, a property manager we had to let go, late rents, stolen heating oil, vandalism, and snow to clear from a roof at a thousand metres. We tell all of it in the journal, because it is the part nobody talks about.

A responsibility towards our tenants

A building is not just an investment: it is home to several families. We have a direct responsibility towards them: a safe, healthy, well-maintained home, repairs handled quickly, safety checks kept up to date, clear rules applied fairly. It is the right thing to do, and it is also what makes a building last: respected tenants stay, and look after their homes.

Where we are going

Our goal is a small portfolio of buildings that provides income independent of our day jobs and, over time, creates jobs too. Next, we are exploring alternative ways of financing, including tokenisation, so that people with smaller means can start investing in property. It is a line of thinking, not an offer.

Kofi Nyamekye, founder of Dwennimmen