 Oh, it's my favorite time of the afternoon. Welcome back. It's time for Winner Home on Afternoon Express, the show where you stand a chance to win an apartment on the Valdivia estate worth more than 3 million rand. Now, beautiful, fabulous homes always grab the attention of everybody around you. And this afternoon, we are lucky enough to have an architect behind just such a house located on the stunning Pearl Valley, in the stunning Pearl Valley. Architect Ben Kotlovitz, the mastermind behind the breathtaking piece of property, is here to share his thoughts on the home. And the design behind it can give our Winner Home contest some advice when it comes to designing on a beautiful estate like that. Welcome to our loft, Ben. Thanks so much. It's honour to have you here. Let's talk about this home in Pearl Valley, because that was a project of note. Wow. Yeah, it really was. The inspiration, of course, was the site, which was just a magnificent 1300-square-metre site, which was south entry north-facing and looked over the first hole of the golf course and out to the, basically, the golf club. Sure. And it's surrounded by these most amazing Frenchook Mountains, and it's just the most incredible canvas to build a house on. Yeah. So we were really inspired, and we had a great brief given to us by the owner, which was to create an entertainer's home. I see. Which is a great... Could welcome guests. It was inviting. It was interesting. I think I always just have a big sigh when I interview all of these beautiful architects who have done incredible work around the country, because you guys have always got this creative eye, and it's always looked so brilliant on the outside once a project's done. But I want to sneak peek into the behind the scenes. There must have been so many challenges going into designing houses like that. I mean, what were some of those challenges that you face and some of the things that went brilliantly well? Yeah, absolutely. I think when you work on a golf estate, you have the estate guidelines, which kind of set the parameters in which you have to design the house. In this instance, we had to have a house with pitched roofs, and we also wanted to, at the same time, bring in the contemporary elements. So it was kind of that juxtaposition of playing off the traditional and the new and creating something that was really special. Yeah, so there are some parameters put in place. You almost are working within a whole atomic capture. Everyone's sort of obligations and everyone's expectations of the building itself and bring those together in a beautifully slick and new and innovative way, which I'm sure is quite interesting. But that area is growing so much. Everyone's so excited about it. What is it about a sort of estate living and living in that particular area that has got people so excited? And what does that mean for an architect to try to design there? I think the key word here is openness. And because it's on a security estate, you have this kind of seamless flow from inside to outside. And as an architect, you don't need to worry about things like burglar bars and shutters and all those merry things, which typically are not so nice to look at. So we're able to create something that you can open out fully and really enjoy the outdoors without worrying about the security aspects. That's so exciting actually, because I know obviously our home at the moment for when a home is the world of your estate and it's absolutely beautiful. That whole area is thriving. But our contestants I think are going to be under a lot of pressure to make sure that they are number one confining to those rules because they're all quite young and I think I've got these big out-the-box ideas but need to confine those into what it is that they're designing for. So let's just talk a little bit about where you get your inspiration from. When you see a project, where do you start? Do you first start with the plan? Do you start with the estate? Where do you begin and get this inspiration from? I think we like to use the idea of understanding design. So we really try and understand firstly what the client wants. What is the brief? How big is the house? What are the relationships between the rooms, et cetera? And then we try and really understand the site, which way the sun rises and sets, the winds in the area, the views, the slope on the land, all those kinds of things inform our design. And then we kind of synthesise it all and come up with hopefully something that's unique and really relates to both the site and to the client's needs and desires. Sure. So our contestants obviously are busy working on their house at the moment. They're moving into their... Well, I think they're finishing off their guest bedroom and are working on some other projects now. But they've got to get a lot of inspiration for this process, because, like I mentioned, I think they're struggling to find that balance between, hey, we're producing a home for Valdavi, but hey, I've also got these amazing big ideas to go about. So please give us some practical tips for our contestants when it comes to designing on an estate like Valdavi. I think what I would say to them is keep it clean, keep the ideas bold and strong and don't over-complicate things. I think there's that saying less is more and that really applies to design. The best design is timeless because it's kind of not overdone. It's beautifully simple. So keep it beautifully simple and it'll be outstanding is what I would say. The other little bit of advice I would give is not to complicate things with too many materials. Keep your palette also kind of restrained and use those materials in different ways rather than putting a whole lot of different materials together. That's some very, very good advice. And finally, obviously for the viewers, one of them is going to get to win a beautiful home in that area, which is stunning. In terms of trying to look out for why it's an investment piece or not, I mean, what is the pull towards living outside of a city centre like that? I think it's the connection to nature. It's the wide open spaces. It's the feeling of not being in a row of suburban houses and you have that real flow that we've spoken about before that is enabled by living on in a state. So we're in for an absolute treat, I think, this season. Thank you so much for sharing all your knowledge and your wisdom. Hope our contestants are taking it to heart. Only a pleasure. Great to be on the show. Thank you. We've got Ben with us in the studio with us today. Jeanne's on standby. Thanks, Dindala. Now, a few weeks back, we ran a competition where you could win a luxury toaster and kettle from Smig. Well, it's time to announce the winner of that competition. So congratulations to Keroom Arif from Cape Town. Your breakfast and morning coffee will never be the same. That's actually a very gorgeous toaster and kettle. Now, we also ran a competition where you could win a Smig retro stand mixer with over 7,000 rand and the entries for that are closed, but we'll be announcing the winner soon on the show. Now, we have a competition to announce. From today, you can vote for your favourite guest bedroom by simply visiting privateproperty.co.ca. Cast your vote and use standard chance to win paint from Plaskon to the value of 5,000 rand. You will also be automatically entered into the grand prize draw where you could win an apartment at Veldavi valued at over 3 million rand. Votes close on Thursday, the 16th of June. Remember that. Thursday, the 16th of June. So don't leave it too late. Dindala is on the couch now with our next guest. Instead, Ling is not only a sought-after way of living, but has become quite popular. And it generally comes with a lot of safety. We have Tim Akinusi with us in the loft, who is the head of sales and client value management at Netbank Home Loans to help guide us through buying into estate living. Welcome back, Tim. Thank you. So estate living has become quite appealing. Why is that? Yes, I think over the last 10 to 15 years, you've seen a lot more developers build homes in a clustered fashion. So as a result of that, it's become very appealing for new entrants into the market. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of people will choose a home in an estate as their secondary or primary home. Is this financial or is it more a lifestyle choice? I think it's both. From a financial standpoint, being able to buy into an estate, especially a brand new one, you get to be spared the cost of transfer cost and registration costs. So it's a bundle option that people would then buy into. From a lifestyle standpoint, you find in more and more entrants into the home loan or housing market, in essence, would be choosing a state living as the preferred option to go into. Yeah. And one of the benefits of living in an estate is feeling like you're part of a community and I'm sure among many other benefits. What are some of the challenges of living in an estate? So there are some pros and cons with it and I think from the challenges side of it, I would say that being in an estate, you need to contend with the fact that you are in a community and you're part of a community. So a lot of the times you are not very flexible in terms of how you want to design your house because it's all part of a uniform approach to doing things. You would also be subjected to levy costs that have been set by the body corporate, which you as a homeowner would be part of. So again, that's an added cost that you would need to factor into your monthly expenses. Thirdly, there are a lot more rules that you'd need to abide by because you're now part of a community. So a lot less of an opportunity to kind of set your own standards, et cetera. So Tim, as a bank, do you have a bias towards estate living or standalone homes? It's a good question, Bonnie. We absolutely don't have a bias. If you choose to buy an estate or in a standalone environment, you'll be proud to finance your home, provided that the valuations are correct in terms of the value of the place and that you can afford it. So the question of whether or not you want to live in a standalone or an estate is really down to your individual personal preference in terms of the things that are important to you as a homeowner. Thank you so much, Tim. That was very insightful. So estate living is exciting and offers a lifestyle that is both enjoyable and safe. You can get all the information you might need to make this move. For more information, visit www.nedbank.co.zr forward slash home loans for more information. So keep your eyes out on Afternoon Express. Every weekday, as our three design contestants gradually transform three properties at Felder via State using finishes provided by Cesar Stone and Plaskon. Judging their work are the team from Arc Interiors and Roselle from Plaskon and Simon Bray from Private Property. Winner Home is proudly brought to you by Private Property in Proud Association with Nedbank. We'll be right back after this.