 Luxury and property are slowly becoming synonymous because of the beautiful suburbs and of course luxurious homes that South Africa has to offer. We are chatting about all of that today right here on the Private Property Podcast. My name is Timmy. Welcome. So our guest today is a highly sought after speaker as well as a real estate enthusiast. He hosts the Private Property Home Shoppers show. He's dedicated to showcasing extraordinary properties and developments in engaging and interactive manner. The show features walkthroughs, some of the beautiful and most spectacular properties South Africa has to offer. Ladies and gentlemen, let's give a podcast welcome to Chad Viveros. Chad, good evening and thank you so much for joining us. Timmy, thank you very much for having me. Thank you. It's an absolute pleasure. At least, you know, tonight you're not walking us through a beautiful house, you know, you're walking us through our beautiful set tonight. It is different than it is just as fancy as I'd say some of the homes are. I really do like it and it's a really good welcome that you gave me there. I think I need to take you with me to some of these shows. I could get used to an intro like this. Sure. Right. So talk us through, you know, talking about going with you to these beautiful homes. A lot of our viewers at home go with you to these beautiful homes and beautiful suburbs in South Africa. Talk to us about how you got into the property industry and how this is such a love, a passion and you love the store culture. Well, it was a long road. So I started off in investment property, offshore investment property about five years ago and that was a journey. Then me and private property started speaking and I joined in a position where I helped business development specifically within real estate and that was five years of a lot of learning, five years of a lot of mistakes, five years of a lot of interesting conversations that we have as we've seen essentially the market rise and market fall and then the market rise all the way over again with 2021 and COVID. So it was all of that. And then beginning of this month really I've started my new role in private property which is the head of PropTech and that is again, I can only believe another long, arduous but exceptionally interesting journey. Sure. And talk to us about that because that was my next question, you know, diving into what you now do at PropTech and it being aligned, of course, with private property. What exactly do you do there and how does a day in your life look like? So PropTech for anybody who doesn't know is very similar to FinTech. And I think a lot of people have heard the word FinTech. So we're using IT resources and IT solutions to help people buy, rent, manage, find, research property easier. So we're trying to look at problems that have existed in the industry for a long time, repurpose them, repackage them and make them that much easier to solve either for the consumer, which is people that come on every day to try and buy a new property, or for our clients, which are people in real estate, you know, developers and that. But a day in my life starts off with a lot of meetings because so many people need to be involved. You've got to have your IT teams involved. You've got to have your business analysts involved. So it's a lot of meetings. It's a lot of trying to distill what product are we trying to sell and what product are we trying to offer to clients and how does it benefit them? What pain points are there and how can we solve them and how can we solve them in ways that haven't looked at before? So I think I'm very, very privileged to have teams that are so committed, not only to our every day guys that jump on the podcast at Braza site, but also to our clients because without them, this position wouldn't exist. I wouldn't be where I am today. It's a whole bunch of people that are far, far smarter than I am that I get to lean on and really get to trust and I enjoy that. Sure. And you know, I'll speak about the other hat that you were in terms of hosting the home owners show. And how does that look for you in terms of how do you, number one, find these amazing properties because they look absolutely amazing. And you know, the way it's documented, how does that process go for you and how do you guys walk an individual that's watching, you know, through those homes and make sure that you highlight those beautiful aspects of the home? That's an interesting question. So how we find them is it's the website. Jump on the website, search different pricing criteria and take a look. And the first thing that you notice is South Africa has got some incredible homes. Sure, definitely. It's homes that you wouldn't believe. I mean, we went down to Cape Town and we were looking at homes in excess of 200 million rand. And I was like, I didn't know homes like that existed in South Africa. And then you stop and you take a step back and you're like, I think I've got to work a little bit hard in life. But yeah, the team here really does go research. They speak to the different estate agents because we'd love to help out the estate agents. So the home shopper show go out there, find those homes and talk about what what's fancy about them. I think was a learning experience for me because the first thing you do is you walk into the home and you look around and you highlight all the incredible features. Oh, it's got a jacuzzi. It's got a room flow pool. You know, you've got these incredible views. And then you start finding out what makes an exceptional home is not just its price point or those stellar features. There's almost an intangible quality of some homes that comes out the moment you walk into them and you're just like this feels like a home and not just a fancy house. And those are really the ones that I think I can wax lyrical on all the time and really enjoy it. And then you get some that just blow you away from the point of view that it's it's like you've walked into a museum. It's like you've walked into an art piece or an art project. And then you can talk about it a lot. But what I came to realise is also there are some homes that you don't want to live in. You might want to own. But then there are some homes that you can imagine living and settling down and staying there for 20, 30 years, raising a family. And those are really the incredible homes. And that's what you want to do with a family, essentially. Well, with a home, essentially, you want to raise a family that needs to be homey and hospitable so that when you have guests and even you yourself can enjoy it with the owner. So let's talk a little bit more about your favourite ones because you spoke a little bit about the beautiful ones you've seen. Tell me about your favourite ones. Which house did you walk into and you say, I could live here? This actually has my name written on it. Have you have you spotted that house yet? There's been there's been one home in Bedford View that we did. I can't remember the episode number, but it was absolutely incredible. And I walked into it and you could see straight through the home. And right at the back, there was this massive pool. They're really beautiful. And they had like and I'm going to do it a gross injustice. Try and explain it now. So please don't don't let me like make it not sound that great. But it had like this rusted artwork and it was supposed to be rusted on the wall behind the pool. But then it had all this greenery flowing out from the rusted artwork and the contrast in colours with the pool was amazing. The way the home was laid out was incredible. And that was probably my favourite. But because I've done so many, I don't think I've got a singular favourite. I've got favourite features in each. Like there's some homes that have got incredible bathrooms. Insanely cosy, luxurious bathrooms. Boss that rise up from the centre of the bathroom that you can just imagine sitting down in, relaxing bubbles. And then you've got this view in some of them. Across the whole estate. And you just think, how are you going to pull yourself out of this thing, go to the office? How do these people get this wealthy when you've got a bathtub like that? And then they've got the pools and the jacuzzi's and the bedrooms and the fireplaces. So there are some, there is in each home, something that I'll say is absolutely incredible. But my standout home will always be that one in Bedford View. And unfortunately, I think straight after we did the video, somebody put an offering on it. But it was and it also wasn't that expensive. So that's a nice thing about the Home Shopper Show is it's not only exceptionally expensive homes. That is the majority and that's what we think makes the best viewing pleasure. But we really do like to switch it up and we might talk about some of the coolest investment property. You know, really cool development. That's, you know, 900,000 rent, but they've done stuff in that development that you don't see other developers doing. And that's what we think it'll be interesting for the guys who watch it. So it's not only the 200 million rent houses, but at house. You know, so close. I'll make sure that you catch up with that home owner. The Home Shopper Show to make sure that you can get all of this luxurious thing. And you know, you see it and you maybe even start seeing how you can start channeling your investment. So let's talk a little bit more about the luxury home spaces in South Africa and the market. How where do you see it going? And do you as compared to the other markets in the world, where do you think we currently are? So look, I'm far from an expert in this, but I think what I can say that holds true is we saw quite a bit growth in 2021. Obviously, the interest rates were so low, everybody wanted to buy them. But what compounded that and affected the luxury space is that people started working from home and it became the norm. Now, to you, somebody say, I work from home. It's not a she's, you're really lucky. It's like, oh, OK, cool. And not only that, it's that, you know, they needed to be an office for, you know, you. And then there's an office for, say, your wife or your husband. Then there's an office or a study for your daughter, your children and each of them. And then everybody wants their own bathrooms so you don't have your children, you know, throwing things at each other in the morning. So people started looking at bigger homes and expanding it and looking at it as an investment because now it's not just your home. It's also your office space. And it could also possibly be your classroom. And that's what we saw the luxury, you know, the luxury market grow. But that being said, in terms of selling luxury homes, it's not a case of these are going to sell once a day. I mean, and most of the real estate agents that specialize in luxury property sales know that. And they also know that the marketing that you need to throw into a luxury home is not the same kind of marketing you need to throw into a four million rent home. And I say four million rent like it's not an expense of property and it is an expense of property. But if you're selling a home for a hundred million rent or 50 million rent, the kind of marketing you need to do needs to be special, it needs to showcase its home. Because the people buying it are also not going to be the people who have got the time to go and take a walk through. I'm not some people do, but some people might want to just see it online. Some people might have the PA is searching for it or somebody in their office searching for it. So the more you can showcase online the better it's going to be for you and the quicker that home is going to sell. Sure. But thank you so much for that. And I feel the passion coming through. And that's because probably you're also a speaker. So take us through some of the topics that you're passionate about and that you talk about in your speaking ventures. It's definitely been an adventure. I think I've been bullied into speaking more than I possibly went into it willingly. But I'd say I've moved more into property personality than I would say speaker. We started off all the home shopper show specifically started off as a talk about developments in South Africa and investments within developments. And that was during covid. So we thought we'll throw out some some entertaining facts out there. And also you could possibly capitalise on the interest rates. And I started off with that. I then moved off into into the home shopper show into this into specific investment talks. And I mean, you'll catch me on Facebook pretty much every Monday and Friday, 8 p.m. for the home shopper show. There's an advert coming out now that we're just looking at that. I'm going to be in. So I think that's how it's been. But it's been a blessing because I think being able to put yourself in situations where you feel uncomfortable and you've got to express yourself and express yourself fluidly and coherently under pressure pays off immediately. So for anybody like looking to get into speaking for anybody who feels like they could improve, put yourself in uncomfortable situations because being able to express yourself is one of the biggest blessings I've had. And it's a blessing that luckily enough private property is given me. Yeah. And you know, as investors are watching tonight or someone who wants to even get into the investment space, you know, they're thinking, what should I do? What is my first step? If maybe I want to start channeling my attention or even my energies and resources into getting luxurious property, what are some of the things they should do to in order to prepare themselves into getting into that space? I'm going to sound like I'm selling going on to the private property portal. But I'd probably say is jump on to your property portal. Jump on to private property. That's the reason being is because we saw that huge dip in the interest rate in 2021, but now it's coming up. You know, the interest rate has been hiked twice. So you're slowly the window of buying property at the lowest possible rate is slowly closing. So jump in on it and jump in on it. Whether you want to buy luxury property or just normal property, it is one of the best investments you can find in South Africa. And it's investments that pay off. So if you're going to do it, start looking at it now. That is the best bit of advice I think I could ever give. Before I let you go, I'm just going to ask you a quick question around people who already have properties. Is it possible for somebody to turn an already existing property into a luxurious property? Would you think? Absolutely. We did a showcase with I might be giving free marketing with builders warehouse. That was incredible. So what we did is we went out into different suburbs and we sourced the home and we purchased it. We then partnered with builders warehouse to renovate it and we documented the steps of how you can renovate a home. So you can 100 percent take a property you've got and invest some time into it and turn it into a investment or luxury property. However, I'd say watch that and do a bit of research because there are certain renovations that you can do that might sound great, but don't re yield results in the long term. So do a bit of research, jump into it and turn your property in a luxury property. Absolutely. And it's very possible you might not want to move off an intellectual property. Well, thank you so much for joining us for tonight's episode. Any last words before I let you go? No, that's it. Thanks for having me. It was a pleasure doing it. I think it's the first time I've done one live. So it's nice to jump on here and speak to everybody on the podcast for once. And you've been doing a fantastic job. I've watched you a couple of times. Thank you so much. I think you need to come on to the home shopper show with me now. When you when you guys are viewing one of those big, beautiful houses, we're going to do it together, you know, get an inspiration and I'll be holding an infinity pool somewhere. You're going to be jumping into the city. Thank you so much for that. It's a pleasure to me. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. And that's about it for tonight's show. Thank you so much for staying till the end of tonight's episode. We look forward to seeing you tomorrow, 7 p.m. right here on the private property podcast. Also remember to follow us on all social media pages and make sure that you are on the path in terms of what is happening in the property spaces. Thank you so much for joining us. My name is Dumi. Have a good night.