All Forum Posts by: Wihan VanWyk

Hi Aphelele!

Welcome to BP. I'm always glad to see a fellow South African joining the ranks on here ^^

I'd recommend reading Brandon Turner's Ultimate beginner guide if you haven't already, that's a great starting point.

Most important is to first figuring out your niche and if it is possible in your area. That's where I would focus.

Also network and try to meet fellow investors in your area. Local meet ups is a good way to do this. 

Feel free to pm me if you have any questions.

@Ryan Hosie Hi Ryan! Thanks so much for your response and reaching out. I agree there is way too few South Africans here on BP.

I've scoured P24.com and PrivateProperty.co.za and I've kept an eye on the commercial property sections, as I'm aware multi family is classified under commercial. But I've seen so few listing on there I've started to wonder if it's the correct space to be looking at all.

Thanks for the suggestions for the broker as well, this does seem to be the most efficient way of doing things.

Please keep an eye out for a pm from me. :)

@Taka Sande Thank you very much for your response. Sadly SA doesn't seem to have much of a presence here on BP yet so it's nice to hear from a local investor.

I am a relatively new investor, and thus I am still building up my own network. Where can I look for auctions like the ones you mentioned?

You are right, Cape Town is going through quite a boom now, and that makes it even harder for newer investors to gain a foothold sadly.

Thanks a lot for your advice and best of luck up there in Gauteng! ^^

@Lillie MAnon Thank you for the great advice. Perhaps I will look into it some more and take into account some of the things you've mentioned here.

I haven't really looked into Durban or much of the rest of SA yet. Since I'm not currently based in SA focusing on my hometown is much easier for now.

 @josh stack 

I have recently started thinking about Airbnb after having heard a bit about it on a BP podcast. It's something I might pursue in the future, but living abroad currently makes something that's management intensive like Airbnb a bit of a challenge.

In terms of SA, Cape Town (and the Western Cape) is an excellent place to invest compared to the rest of the country. Although at the moment the prices are quite high, that being said the province is receiving a huge influx of people and so demand keeps rising.

I am not too familiar with laws in terms of foreign investors but I recall reading that it is pretty favorable. But It's best to look into this yourself to be safe.

Because of the high prices currently, price/rent ratio and be tricky but it is still manageable in many areas and it's not hard too find good deals from time to time. Something like Airbnb definitely has the income potential to justify prices if done correctly I think.

I suggest you look at property24.com and private property.co.za as these are the sites I use to keep tabs on the market.

If you have any further questions about the SA market feel free to reach out to at any point :)

Hi @Josh Stack , I'm primarily looking at Cape Town and the surrounding areas as that is where I'm from.

@Don Spafford Thank you very much for your response!

That is a great idea, and seems like a good starting point.

S Africa I think has a lot of potential in this area but it's shocking how little information is out there!

Thanks again! :)

Hi Everyone!

This is one of my first posts here on BP asking for some advice and help. I successfully purchased my first single family property last year, and it has been working well and is pretty much running on auto pilot now. But having had it for awhile now I became increasingly disenchanted with the scalability of the single family strategy.

So I have systematically started studying up and teaching myself about multifamily investing and I am getting to the point where I want to start looking at potential properties and numbers to get a feel for the market.

But as I started looking into it I have found it exceedingly hard to find any information about the South African multifamily market. The usual public sites like privateproperty.com and property24 does not service this field (at least not as far as I could find), and there is also no South African equivalent of something like LoopNet.

Is there perhaps anyone that has knowledge in this field and that can perhaps point me in this direction. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

  

Hi Jason, I'm an investor from Cape Town. Nice to meet you.

BP has a lot to offer, I am sure you will find what you are looking for here.

I'm not sure your level of experience in real estate but if you are fairly new I suggest the free book 'The Ultimate Beginners Guide To Real Estate Investing', written by Brandon and Josh from the BP Podcast. It helped me a lot when I started not too long ago.

Best of luck with your endeavors :)

Hi Wouter,

I'm a fellow new investor from Cape Town currently working abroad.

Welcome to BiggerPockets! I am sure this site will provide you with everything you need.