Property Avalible

Collage house


Asking Price R350k




UNIT 606=26 SQM RENTAL=R3, 800

UNIT 407=31 SQM CURRENTLY VACANT

THERE IS PARKING AVALIBLE

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Joburg CBD flat rentals surge

05 Aug 2010

The Johannesburg inner city appears to be the only market in South Africa still offering buy-to-let investors a growing income stream.

That’s true for bachelor flats in particular, with latest figures from property economists Rode & Associates showing that average rentals for bachelor units in the Johannesburg inner city rose a whopping 34, 6% in the year to second quarter 2010.






That brought the average rental for a standard bachelor unit in the Johannesburg inner city to R2,675/month. That means it now costs more to rent a flat in Hillbrow than in Randburg. According to Rode & Associates tenants are currently paying an average R2,650/month to rent a bachelor flat in Randburg’s Ferndale and Fontainebleau. Click to read more

Some Rules to Investing in Property

If you know what you looking for you can still make “serious money” in residential property, say property experts.“There is no more money for nothing and investors will have to relearn the traditional investment rules,” said Andrew Schaefer, MD of property management company, Trafalgar.

Reasonably priced properties (that are good value for money) are becoming more difficult to find and require a lot of legwork, adds Anton de Leeuw, CEO of YDL property educationalists.

Here are five golden rules to finding them:

Long-term investment. Property is traditionally a long-term investment and you should focus on building your wealth over decades, rather than months or years, reckoned Schaefer.If you take the long view and see property as a conservative, steady, income investment then short-term fluctuations in the market should not concern you too much, maintained de Leeuw.

Property players warn of get-rich-quick property schemes offering returns that are too good to be true. Income not capital growth. Concentrate on income rather than capital growth. “Having a piece of land is not wealth but having steady income from a portfolio of flats is,” he explained. Investors underestimate how important cash flow is - it is one of the most important rules, said De Leeuw.

Don’t rush. Slowly accumulate a low-risk portfolio reckons Schaefer. “The days are over when you could make quick money by buying off plan - prices aren’t rising by 30% a year anymore and you must take your time”, he added.

Specialise. Choose a niche and become an expert in it. Schaefer advises investors to choose a city suburb or even a street of shops and flats. “The property market is imperfect because information is not easily available so you can quickly dominate your chosen territory.”Educated investors will know that the property market is not one uniform mass of houses and buildings – it is made up of thousands of local markets, each with its own characteristics, maintained De Leeuw.

Bigger is not always better. A home with a big bond is not an investment, warns Schaefer. “People tend to buy bigger houses and take on bigger bonds as their jobs improve but this just means paying larger monthly instalments,” he said. It will make far more sense to live in a smaller house and invest in buy-to-let properties with tax-deductible bond payments, reckoned Schaefer. But, he added, you can use your house to a limited extent to raise a deposit to buy an investment property.

RentSure - Great News

Rentsure is one of the greatest companies to hit the CBD. We are in the process of working with Rentsure. One of there requirements is that your tenant signs a debit order. We are still sorting that issue out with our bank. Once our banking items are fixed we will be partnering with them and offering this insurance to our landlords.

Colosseum Electrical Challenges

We were seeing a problem with the electricity bills for a lot of our owners.

We have had a long chat with Trafalgar to find out what is the problem with the electrical accounting.

The Colosseum was converted from a high-end commercial building into residential, much of the mechanical and electrical services have been carried over into the new building.

The buildings electricity charge needs to cover the (1) consumption of the unit, (2) there is a portion boiler and (3) for the airflow (ventilation)


This meant that each unit will have a charge:

• Metered consumption for your unit;
• A portion of the boiler charge & the airflow consumption servicing the units’ floor;

The dilemma is that even if the unit is vacant these charges will be raised on the invoice.

The one advantage is that there is a possibility that we can attempt to pass these charges onto the tenant.

It just seems to be one thing after the next with this building, this development has really upset a lot of landlords and we hope that it does not leave a sour taste in their bank accounts for too long. Once the building is full we will start to see a positive increase in the rents.

Great news for the CBD

This Artical from Eprop

Office decentralisation and perceptions of crime and grime has seen certain tenants relocating from Braamfontein to the decentralised nodes, but companies such as Liberty Life, Sappi, SafMarine and Rennies have committed to the area, and together with Government, are pumping vast amounts of capital into the area in the form of urban design initiatives and parking facilities. This is now seeing strong improvements to property market fundamentals and investment activity.

Marc SchneidereProp Research

The next arical was taken from business day

Pace Property Group MD David Green says the development of Bridgeview units prices range from R399000 to R1,2m, including VAT. The apartments are trendy and aimed at young professionals and executives.
Green says there is strong demand from buyers for space in Braamfontein. Government’s urban development zone tax-incentive scheme is paying dividends, with developers looking to extract the full benefit of the incentives. “Therefore, we anticipate rapid new development and improvement of inner-city real estate.”
The urban renewal tax incentives were announced by the treasury in October 2004. On offer is a 20% tax deduction from all income earned in the first five years after a building has been refurbished. For new developments, government is offering a tax deduction of 20% in the first year in which the building starts earning an income.
The Johannesburg urban development zone, for which the tax break is applicable, includes the central business district, Newtown and Braamfontein, as well as the high-density, high-rise residential areas of Hillbrow and Berea.
Other low-density residential areas surrounding the general Ellis Park area, such as Bertrams, Judith’s Paarl, Doornfontein and Troyeville, as well as Bellevue, Bellevue East and Yeoville, also form part of the approved urban development zone.

Do South Africans have the wrong mind set when it comes to property?

We have seen this for years now, and it is becoming more of a problem.

More buy-to-let investors are joining the market with the dream of easy riches. The influx of investors is great for the economy and will help turn the property market around sooner than most skeptics might think.
The problems arise when investors come to the playground without understanding the whole process.

Over the next couple of days we will go through some to the major shortfalls (excuse the pun) that we see investors having

The first mind set that has to change is the need to let the property as soon as possible so that the rent can cover the bond.

Although the fundamentals of this strategy are sound, the problem is that in their hast the landlords neglect to take the time to do that right checks. 95% of the problems come from neglecting to do a credit and background check on the tenant. This small necessary inconvenience is definitely worth its troubles.

The simple steps are,

1. Properly screening. An undesirable tenant will often have a poor rental and financial histories.
2. Landlords should review previous landlord relations.
3. Credit checks and income. It is probable that if they have not met their obligations with previous landlords, then chances are that they will repeat their behavior with you landlords.
4. Screening also involves verifying that the person who is applying is the same person that submits credit/criminal info for screening. A picture I.D. should be cross-referenced with the application.
5. Landlords must make sure that there are no omissions, inaccuracies or inconsistency in the actual application.


Due diligence will certainly save you much money and stress.

Don’t fall into the mind set of “Quick got to get a Tenant now”

Questions for your new tenents

We often have limited time, here are a few question that you should ask when a tenant calls you to make an appointment. if their answers don't satisfy you, you don't wast your time on a fruitless viewing.

If you do make an appointment to see the unit, ask them to bring ID.

1. What are the best phone numbers to reach you should we get disconnected or I need to reschedule an appointment? (home, cell and and work, if possible)- So that you can call them back if necessary. (Remember, they have yours!)
2. 
   How many people will be living in the unit, even if temporarily?
3. 
   What's your current situation?/ Where are you renting now?
4. 
   Why are you looking to move?
5. 
   When are you looking to move?
6. 
   Do you think your current landlord would give you a good reference?
7. 
   Do you have any pets? (if so, what kind?)
8. 
   Does anyone who wants to rent this property smoke?
9. 
   How many vehicles total would everyone need to park at the property? (not normally a problem in the CBD)
10. 
    In what other areas would you be interested in renting? (in case you have vacant units in other units, too.)
11. 
    How many bedrooms do you need?
12. 
    How long are you looking to rent?
13. 
    How much do you make per week/month/year (whichever seems most appropriate)? How about the other applicants? Is this "gross income" or "take home" income?

The right TENANT

When you buy a rental property, it is a huge financial investment. Why then, do landlords end up with tenants who do not pay their rent, destroy the apartment, loss of rent money, inflict extreme stress, then leave your unit to move into another newly prepared unit? What can a landlord do to prevent renting to an irresponsible or high-risk tenant?
One of the most important decisions a landlord with vacant unit will make is to choose a tenant who will pay the rent, respect the property and the other tenants, and obey the laws of the land and the rules of their lease.

If you have rental property, you want to get the most income out of it, while keeping expenses low on your investment. You may not always have the funds or the desire to use an outside real estate agent. There are also landlords who like to rent their own apartments in order to control who will live either with them and their family in the same building, or in an investment apartment.
Landlords need to learn the basic and effective methods of the tenant selection process used by Blue Label property managers. Landlords need to learn from the experiences of professional apartment renters, who can recommend which decisions and procedures work best, and advise which poorly used techniques will not get you the kind of tenant you need and desire. Over our career, we have rented many of the markets apartments. We have three primary reasons why we think homeowners, landlords, and/or managers end up with poor choices of tenants. For the most part, there are three areas of omission:

1. Owners do not check or verify all of the applicant’s information through a rental application;

2. Owners accept the rental applicant’s explanations and excuses instead of searching for the facts;

3. Owners do not ask the right questions or enough questions by interviewing each candidate
Some homeowners allow a total stranger to occupy their real estate financial investment. They take the minimal amount of time and spend as little money possible to investigate a rental applicant. If the applicant is friendly, smiles a lot, and appears to be ‘neat and clean’, he or she can get the keys to an apartment with little else than a security deposit and the first month’s rent. There are owners who will rent their apartments to their relatives and/or friends of their children or neighbors, without checking anything at all.

Rental applicants come to you for a roof over their head on a month-to-month paying basis for a pre-determined amount of time. There is a cost to having shelter provided to an individual or family. Those who do not pay for their shelter must be asked to leave the premises, so that a more responsible family may benefit from the housing.
There are costs associated with providing decent, safe, and sanitary housing. A homeowner needs to check out a rental applicant’s information in order to attempt to ensure that you will receive the rent every month, on time, and that the tenant will respect the condition of the apartment and building. The return in spending the time and money in checking out a rental applicant as thoroughly as possible in advance of handing out the keys, will be the long-term stability of your property, and especially your finances from that property.
It is important to remember what we gain from using a practical approach to renting out a vacant unit.
When you take the ‘lazy’ approach to picking a tenant, when you cut corners, spend less or no money to verify application information, when you listen to excuses, or just do not pay enough attention to the answers, you can rent an apartment to your peril. Many owners realize too late they have allowed an applicant to slip through the process. Perhaps the unit has been vacant for a long time. Maybe the unit is not one of the most desirable in your portfolio, or is in a neighborhood that makes renting it out difficult. Whatever the reason, the time and money spent checking out every piece of information on the rental application is rewarded with a low-risk tenant. It is certainly cheaper than the eviction process.