Indian founder bought 2 houses at 24, says her kids may never afford one: ‘Salaries haven’t kept pace’

An Indian entrepreneur claims that the only way to beat inflation is to build something outside of one’s 9-to-5 job. Riya Upreti, founder of Fobet Media, argued that simply doing the minimum in a conventional career will not generate enough wealth to keep up with the rising cost of living.Riya Upreti is the founder of personal branding agency Fobet Media.In a LinkedIn post, Upreti backed this argument with a personal anecdote. She said that she had managed to buy two houses the time she was 24-years-old, but her children may not even be able to afford one due to the skyrocketing real estate prices.“Salaries haven’t kept pace”“I bought 2 houses at 24, but my kids might never buy one,” Riya Upreti wrote on LinkedIn.She argued that property prices have risen much faster than many people’s incomes, so the traditional path of earning a salary and eventually buying a house may no longer work for younger generations.“In India, home prices have been rising faster than inflation, while salaries haven’t kept pace in many sectors,” wrote the woman behind Fobet Media, a personal branding agency. “It made me realise how the economy keeps getting difficult,” she added.(Also read: ‘Mumbai’s 2BHK is mathematically impossible’: Founder compares housing affordability with New York)Push yourself out of comfort zoneUpreti said that more and more successful people are building businesses, equity, intellectual property, assets or personal brands alongside their main profession, because they realise that a conventional career is no longer adequate for building wealth.Salary growth alone may not be enough to build wealth in an inflationary economy, she claimed, and so people need to create additional sources of income. To do so, they must get out of their comfort zone.Upreti said that she knows doctors, founders and content creators who have never stopped pushing themselves to get out of their comfort zone.“I’ve never settled on one business model & that’s the secret everyone asks for. That’s exactly why almost every successful person I meet is building something outside their primary profession,” she claimed.“Because bare-minimum efforts in your career will only give you bare-minimum results.”(Also read: ‘They put my needs ahead of their own’: Grateful son buys Bhopal home for parents who braved years of financial hardship)The founder ended her post saying that the only way to beat inflation is to build something beyond one’s primary profession — whether it is a business or a personal brand.“And the only way to beat inflation is owning equity, businesses, intellectual property, assets, or a solid personal brand,” she concluded.