The human society has come from far in terms of land and home ownership. This transition has been nothing short of evolution of human lifestyle. Man moved from a hunter- gatherer to a farmer and finally to a highly organized complex society with fixed abode.
The cave man
The first real home of a man was the cave. This is evidenced by paintings, stones axes and odd carved trinket, found in the caves.
Our ancestors lived a simple life, that of a hunter-gatherer. They steadily, however, gave up being hunter-gatherers, and became farmers. This marked a major transition to agrarian society. This transition was a precursor to home ownership.
The farmer
Man graduated from a hunter- gatherer to a farmer. This shift led a settled agrarian society ruled by tribal chief. A stable and secure community, with improved farming methods saw the population balloon.
The renting system
The increased population, required place for expansion. This led to fights between neighboring tribes. A well organized army to protect the community became a necessity. Tribal leaders had to look for way to raise and maintain powerful armies to defend their communities and consolidate their power. To achieve this, tribal leaders established the renting system. Their subjects were to rent land from the tribal leader. As some tribal leaders become more powerful and conquered other tribes, they forced the conquered tribes to rent land and to pay taxes.
Landlords
With time the agrarian society evolved into a more complex society. An outstanding phenomenon was establishment of kingdoms. The king was the most powerful ruler in the community and owned the entire community land. The king deeded the land to his close friends and relatives, who in turn rented the land to the peasants. Both the landlords and peasant farmers had to pay taxes to the king.
Mortgages
The advent of industrial revolution and democratic governments completely changed the face of land ownership. These twin occurrences led to subdivision of land that was sold in a free market.
Mortgages become more prominent. For considerable time mortgages operated as restricted loan given to nobility. Industrial revolution freed mortgage as banks started giving loans to common people to buy their own homes.
Mortgage, like any good thing, has led to overindulges Individuals have taken too much mortgage then they can service. This has caused a meltdown in market with disastrous after effects that have reverberated in the entire world economy.
