Practical Keys To Unlock Your Property Journey

By Carmel Van Niekerk

‘Practical Keys to Unlock your Property Journey’ is a step-by-step workbook spiced with stories, interviews, website links and application questions to guide YOU on YOUR property journey.

From finding your ideal home, to filling your buy-to-let properties with tenants, Carmel Van Niekerk provides insight into each step of the process, for full-time employees purchasing property in South Africa.

In an engaging, easy to read manner, delve into the stories and interviews behind:

·Why property is a good, long-term passive income generator;
·How to get your ducks in a row to purchase your first – or further – properties;
·The ways in which number crunching can assist your investment decisions;
·Different investment strategies;
·How to source your ideal tenant.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will your property empire, but if you want to start and not feel overwhelmed by the process, then
‘Practical Keys to Unlock your Property Journey’ is the book to guide you.

After navigating her way through the overwhelming process of buying several properties and with little to support her, Carmel van Niekerk wrote this practical workbook, guiding you through your first (or successive) purchase of property, powerfully accelerating your path to a passive income.

She has combined her experience and insight with an estate agent, a student accommodation investor, residential developers and the layman first time investor amongst other property professionals, bringing you tried and tested property investment strategies, through real stories of fellow South Africans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carmel Van Niekerk
• Release date: Jun 20, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463514771

Book preview

PRACTICAL KEYS

TO UNLOCK YOUR

PROPERTY

JOURNEY

A practical workbook for first time buyers &

aspiring property investors in South Africa

BY Carmel Van Niekerk

Copyright © 2019 Carmel Van Niekerk

Published by Carmel Van Niekerk Publishing at Smashwords

First edition 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without permission from the copyright holder.

The Author has made every effort to trace and acknowledge sources/resources/individuals. In the event that any images/information have been incorrectly attributed or credited, the Author will be pleased to rectify these omissions at the earliest opportunity.

Published by Carmel Van Niekerk using Reach Publishers’ services,

Edited by Gerard Peter for Reach Publishers

Cover designed by Reach Publishers

P O Box 1384, Wandsbeck, South Africa, 3631

Website: www.reachpublishers.co.za

E-mail: [e-mail]

Contents

Dedication

Disclaimer

1 Why property?

2 Get your ducks in a row

3 Financing your property

4 What’s your strategy?

5 Ways to buy your property

6 Finding your tenants

Icons in this book

Where you see this icon, follow the link to a website page.

Where you see this icon, follow the link to a short video demonstration.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my family and friends who have put up with me throughout my property endeavours. It’s been a bumpy road, with amazing highs and dreadful lows. I also want to thank all those who were patient with me whilst I wrote this book and each person who agreed to share their experience through questionnaires and interviews to help you learn through vicariously for your journey. I am extremely grateful. I also want to thank God and the 100x Acceleration group of Kingdom Entrepreneurs, who accelerated this book into being.

Disclaimer

This book includes the author’s experiences and views using real stories with fictitious names to protect privacy. It is for educational purposes and the reader is responsible for his or her own actions. Neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility or liability whatsoever on the behalf of the purchaser or reader of this book.

1

Why property?

This chapter provides an overview of why I personally chose to invest in property. It will help you understand why you need this practical workbook as opposed to going to two-hour ‘quit your job and make millions through property’ talks.

You will learn:

Robert Kiyosaki’s basic concepts

Why property has been a good investment for me

Reasons to invest in property for passive income

Reasons not to invest in property for passive income

Included is a Kindness Triggers story and an explanation of why I have a degree of authority to write about property experiences and investment.

You will be shown:

What is required from you to proceed

You will be asked to answer:

Key Application Questions in the form of steps

I strongly encourage you not to progress to the next chapter until you’ve thoroughly gone through each step.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life. Let’s begin.

Introduction

This book is about you.

You have chosen this book and although it is about my story, experiences and suggestions, it is about the journey you are about to embark on. Use this book as a tool to learn, laugh and to help you on your way – from buying your first home right through to earning passive income from your multiple properties. This book is as practical as they get.

My reasons for writing this book

On 15 April 2017, I had a sleepless night before my flight to San Francisco. I had a feeling that a lot would change over the following week whilst I was away, but didn’t realise I would start writing a book about buying property in South Africa for most of that nine-hour flight. Armed with a large packet of M&M’s and my dying 2010 MacBook, I sat squashed on my airplane seat and started the journey of writing this book. The idea of writing a practical book to assist first-time home buyers and those aspiring to build their property portfolios to earn passive income in South Africa got me so excited that I wrote a good chunk of it on that flight. I set out to outline the process of investing in property to help others start their journey. I wanted to take away the overwhelming nature of buying property and provide a practical book, peppered with my own stories and interviews from those who have dabbled in South African property.

My frustration

I have written this book out of the desire to help others and also out of my own frustration. I want to show you what is required to purchase property in a step-by-step manner, demonstrating each step through stories and practical tips. I also want to articulate my frustration. Let me explain my point of frustration.

I attended several property investment talks and conferences, in South Africa and the UK. These are usually held in an expensive hotel room to create a pre-frame in the audience’s minds that those giving the talk are successful. After all, why would you want to follow and learn from someone who is not successful, right? (I’ll get back to this later) These talks typically last two hours and are usually free. As with most things, the value lies in your ability to utilise the tools that they teach you, however not much can be taught in a two-hour seminar to hundreds of people without the learning audience being given the opportunity to ask how the principles taught can be applied to their specific situations.

These charismatic speakers then advertise throughout the free talk about a follow-on course they will be hosting in a couple of weeks. They reel the audience into the perceived value of the property course by initially stating an outrageous amount for it. Halfway through the free conference they offer the follow-on course at half price if the audience (soon to be customers) sign up there and then. This causes everyone to stir and watch each other. Some make a beeline for the sign-up table and it plays on the fear of being left out if one doesn’t sign up immediately, especially at this great discounted price that is only available to those who buy during the seminar. The mindset of scarcity is set. It’s utterly ridiculous if you think about it but, it does work because most people operate from a place of fear and a mindset of scarcity. Seeing others sign up edges the indecisive lamb to the slaughter and to sign up too. Why not? Everyone else is doing it.

I was also a sacrificial lamb and attended one paid weekend seminar in London. It was informative but not nearly worth the money I paid. Let me paint the picture for you. During the seminar they explain how you can increase your credit card limit. Then, during the break, you are given the opportunity to complete the exercise to phone your bank to ask for them to raise your credit card limit. At the end of the seminar you realise they are inviting you to yet another seminar on a different weekend where you will learn so much more. The cost of the seminar is outrageous and no one would normally be able to afford it, but they make you an offer that if you can find a friend, you can both pay half price but only if you sign up today! It seems like such a steal when they state it like that. Again, scarcity mindsets and the fear of missing out sets in, but fortunately the average Joe Bloggs cannot afford these ridiculous seminar prices. Only, what’s just happened? All in attendance who have completed the lunch break task successfully have managed to increase their credit limit, and viola, they can afford the next ‘life changing’ seminar.

Granted, there is some merit to what they teach you, but it’s superficial and only scratches the surface. Since that experience I’ve often said to friends that I would pay that same amount of money for a one-hour session with an expert property investor. I want someone to be solely focused on my situation and financial stance in a one-to-one environment. For me, this would be more valuable than a whole weekend of tips given to the crowd where no one can ask questions. Sorry, let me rephrase, when all questions are ‘taken at the end’ and then they conveniently run out of time.

This is what has led me to writing this book. In retrospect, I realise everything about those conferences reeks of a lack of integrity and follow through. The convincing successful speaker talks about how he quit his job and bought many properties in one year. In all honesty, I have no idea how they went about doing that – in one year too! I know a couple of speakers who have done this because they’ve told me they’ve done so, but I do not know one in real-life who, based on those talks, has managed to successfully quit their job and become a full-time property investor among my circle of friends.

Who is this book for?

My experience and those around me have shown me that, without a full-time job; a sizeable deposit or old family money or friends to assist; it’s extremely difficult to buy property in South Africa. The banks, hands down, favour employed applicants over self-employed. I have a friend who works in the property realm but he owns the business and we laugh that his employees get a home loan approved quicker than he does because it’s his business.

I’d like to say I’m a consistent, organised, administration- and numbers-orientated person but I am not. However, this method of investing in property has been slow, consistent and has a long-term view and strategy with increasing financial gain.

Therefore, this book is for you if you:

- Are employed;

- Have access to at least 10% deposit for a property you wish to buy (start small);

- Have grit;

- Are a risk-taker;

- Are living in South Africa; and/or

- Are living overseas but are a South African resident and can purchase property in South Africa.

Please note that I’ve used the term ‘home loan’ instead of the words bond/mortgage as much as possible in this book as expat South Africans may still wish to invest in property in the country and may no longer refer to a loan from a bank for a property as a ‘bond’.

The style of this Book

This book is written to be as practical as possible for you. I will achieve what I’ve set out to achieve if you, the reader and future home owner and/or investor, apply and act on what you learn whilst reading this book.

Each chapter provides:

An outline of steps for you to take to move you along your property journey; and

Application questions for you to apply what you are learning to your own circumstances.

In some chapters, I’ve included:

My own story: Learning vicariously through my experiences is one of the easiest ways to remember what to do and what NOT to do;

Interviews: To maintain authenticity, I’ve asked some people to answer questions relating to experiences that I am not familiar with, thereby keeping it real;

Kindness Triggers stories: These are real stories whereby acts of kindness have moved and shifted occurrences in my property processes. A thread I’ve noticed in most of my property dealings (and in life in general) is that kindness triggers so much. It is responsible for results that are not necessarily a reflection of effort. When people show grace, things move almost immediately. I have therefore inserted what I’ve called ‘Kindness Triggers’ throughout this book.

This book is structured in a way that if you do not like stories and just want to learn steps, you can simply read the topic