Cape Town landlord

[Christopher Garrow]

Hi guys! I'm not going to lie it feels weird referring myself as a landlord :)

I purchased a flat in October 2015 & have been putting as much money as possible into paying it off since then. This seems contrary to most research I do where people seem to generally rather focus on keeping bond repayments to a minimum & using the excess cash flow to purchase further properties. Any recommended links of this topic would be appreciated.

My property cost me ZAR390 000 with ZAR 15 000 transfer costs. I put down ZAR 100 000 as a deposit & am currently paying off between 5000 - 10000 a month depending on how much I can spare. My interest rate  from the bank is 8.5% which is quite good in South African terms. My rental is 4600 & I pay a rental agent 12% so its quite a passive investment as she handles everything. Levies are 1100 per month & I so I get about 3000 nett. 

The thing that excites me about real estate is that I can pay 5000 - 10 000 for the next 3 years & then for the rest of my entire life I get an extra income of 3000 nett + owning an actual asset. I am dying to purchase further properties but do not know how much of a good idea it is until this one is paid off. My current train of though is buying unit after unit once they are paid off. This means I have to start off with cheap units & after I have 2-3 it will get much easier. Once I have the momentum going in 8-10 years it will be very simple to add to my portfolio.

Anyway that's a rather lengthy introduction, see you guys on the forum!

Edit: On my profile it shows my full name. Is that something people on the forum can see? If it is how do I set it to private?