 Good evening and welcome to episode 381 of the Private Property Podcast. I'm your host Rosamund Domoakumalo. It's the Wednesday edition of the Private Property Podcast for journalists. For the first time, welcome to the family. You're tuned into the only daily property podcast in South Africa, helping you on your property journey. And it doesn't matter where you are on your property journey. We're certainly here to make it better and to empower you with the knowledge that you will need to make better decisions. And to all of you, regular viewers at home, whether you're watching this on Facebook or on Instagram or on YouTube, welcome to it. You know how we do. Every single weekday, you and I have an appointment at 7pm. We're always in conversation with a property expert who helps us make better property decisions. And as you know, there are also great shows that you can look forward to every single weekday at 8pm right here across private properties, social media pages. As it is a Wednesday, you can catch SD classes on the first time home bias show. And she's on your screens every single Wednesdays. And every Tuesdays and Thursdays, Umbalino Gop brings you the farming podcast, tackling all things agriculture. And every Mondays and Fridays, you can catch Chad on the Home Shoppers Show. We always text you through incredible properties that you can find on www.privateproperty.co.za. Those are great programs that you can find every single weekdays at 8pm right here across private properties, social media pages. Remember to follow us across our social media pages. And you can follow myself at zamandonga underscore K on Instagram as well as on Twitter. Now, one of the other things that you find on our social media pages, particularly our Facebook page is the great competition that we are running where you send a chance of walking away with 500 grand in cash every single evening. And all you have to do to send a chance of walking away with that cash prize is to go and comment on the pinned post on our Facebook page. And after you've done that, make sure you watch us live every single weekday at 7pm. And if we call your name, you want to make sure that you drop us a text and you claim that prize. Is that easy to walk away with some cash right here? On the private property podcast with my son, Zamandonga Kumalo, this evening we've got 500 grand in the money bag. And of course, that is what is up for grabs. I do hope whoever gets to be the winner will indeed be watching us and can claim that money. Now, this evening we're talking about how maintenance enhances property value. We talk a lot about the importance of maintaining your property, but we're looking particularly at the knock on your face to the value of your property and not just for the convenience factor that you obviously are going to have when you maintain your property. And help us get a good sense of how this is done and going this evening by Hoshi Sasa, CEO at Mochalapuena Values. And I must already apologize on his behalf for not having the greatest connection. So he's going to be live with us on audio so his camera is switched off so that you at home are able to hear him well. Hoshi, good evening and thank you so much for joining us on the show. Good evening, Zama. Thanks for having me. I'm glad to be here. It's such a pleasure to have you with us, Hoshi. Unfortunately, our networks are not working too well, but we always say the show must go on and we absolutely need to do our best to make sure that the viewers at home still get their daily dose of the podcast. Now, I think when we do ask, people even look at how maintenance enhances property value, let's first just, we've spoken about this when you've been on the show before, but let's quickly touch on what goes into a property's value. I mean, I think as a valuer and as a valuer's yourselves, when you do an evaluation and we're obviously looking at residential property, what are the things that you look at that ultimately fall down to how the evaluation figure ends up ultimately being? They are what we call property-value-forming factors, attributes. One of those being the location of the property, the size of the land or the extent of the property, the actual size of the buildings on site that would be your house or whatever buildings that you may have. The condition of the house also counts. And also, the other thing as well is, how do you care for it? That's what the condition is concerned. So, among those, we also look at the issue of overcapitalization. If there is any, are you building in line with the rest of your neighbors or are you the odd one out, and that is why you obviously drive yourself to be in line with anything that is happening in your area. Your building has to be built in a few minutes. Your valuer-forming attributes are very important in this case. Many people like, say, location, location. That's true, but there are other ones that you can tell yourself about overnight location. And I think it's so important for people to take note that location alone is not the only factor. And you rightfully pointed out that oftentimes people say location, location, location, but we also know that sometimes you may have that one factor, right? But the other factors may not necessarily be up to standard, and that does have, unfortunately, a negative impact on the value. I can already see some of the love that we're getting on our Facebook page from, you know, some of our viewers at home. I couldn't be more glad to be sending through those green hearts. Do mark their registered down here below as we're talking about how maintenance enhances your property value at home. And I'm actually interested to find out from our viewers at home if you've ever had evaluation done on any of your properties, because I think this is one of those things that we sometimes don't actually, you know, explore or end up doing. And at the times people only, you know, want to do it, perhaps when they want to refinance their property, or when they're interested in buying a new property. And they're not quite sure if the purchase price is correctly priced, and they want to get a good sense of, you know, what the value of that property is. And now, when we then look at, you know, maintenance enhancing property value, I think let's look at some of the maintenance, you know, mistakes that people make when it comes to their residential properties that ultimately affects and negatively affects the value of the property. Let me use a few examples. We obviously know that there are four seasons in the year. There's the rain season, there's winter, there's autumn, and there's spring. In winter, the trees dry out, so the leaves, for those that have trees in their yard, leaves you or block all those, then you're going to the gutters, block the gutters. By the time the rain season comes, your gutters are blocked and you're moving away. What then happens is that when the gutters are blocked, water going to the gutters doesn't flow over, now it breaks the gutters off and interferes with your gutter on the roof. So your extract cannot get to the width because of more than whatever comes into the wooden panels that you wouldn't have used then. That's one example. The second one is where the ridges on top of the roof needs to be painted regularly. Let's say once in a while do it so that you are waiting, having rain water go through the roof into the ceiling, now it becomes a cost for you now to replace the ceiling or repent the ceiling. Let's say those two things happened and you are not aware or you are aware, you simply ignore them and expect yourself, I'll read after a while. What then happens is that when a valuer comes out, let's say a bank valuer comes out, he's doing a valuation for a mortgage, comes out, gets to a site, thinks that the ceiling indicates that there are problems on the roof. So when that property is to be valued, you would imagine a similar type sized house next door to yours that doesn't have those problems has to be given a slightly higher value than yours because in your case there has to be an expensive cat in making the property habitable or make it usable for the level of weight. In cases where you find that maybe the ceiling is turned brown, it's about to fall in, you can even see through the roof because the tiles are shifted and that. So it's very minor things that one needs to look at, that will eventually go a long way in creating a very good appeal, a capable appeal for your property. Like I mentioned, the tiles have shifted, you could simply just take your ladder, go up there or get the professional to go up there and then push the tiles back into shape because by avoiding fixing that, when it rains, water will definitely slip through into the ceiling, the paint, the paint work on the warning, it damages your flooring. By the time you catch a wake-up, you're too late, you are now going to be expected to spend a lot in fixing those. Now can you imagine that if I had to come out and to come out and conduct an evaluation on your property and I find those things there, I cannot ignore them because remember I'm reporting to the bank that needs to know everything about it for their security. Even for yourself, if you say Hoshi, come and do an evaluation for me, I need to know how much can I sell my house for. In the report that we'll be writing for you, we'll make you aware that you could have done this to enhance your value, but it seems like your maintenance has not been done as a result of your misuse or interference on your property. I am this evening in conversation with Hoshi Sasso, the CEO at Makhala Gwena Valuers. We're looking at how maintenance enhances your property value. When we then look at how maintenance enhances your property value, perhaps it goes through how it does that and some of the key things that we should always make sure are always maintained that certainly drives the value of the property either higher or certainly makes sure that it maintains that value for a significant period of time. Maybe let's talk about the most crucial factors around a house. Let's use a house as an example on a property. I'll talk about the house and then talk about the property itself, because many people tend to confuse property as a house. A house is a house on a property. Property is the stand, that's where your house is. On a house, some people leave the paving around the house to be loosed. What then happens is that there's water seepage that goes through into your foundation. Once it goes through in there, it brings up the cracks now. You now start now seeing things that you didn't know exist on your house because of the water seepage. That's around the house. The other crucial one is the actual roof of the house. You cannot afford to have an excuse of any sort as to why you're not maintaining your roof. Because if your house is not properly maintained, you now have a leaking roof. A leaking roof means the ceiling is damaged. When the ceiling gets damaged, that means that your painting as well gets damaged. Eventually, it goes all the way to the to the flooring. But now, even with the with the water seepage on the on the pavement along along along the wall itself, once moisture rises, you know your paint is going to your paint is going to flake off. With paint flaking off now, you are now in a position whereby your house looked like it was painted some hundred years ago. Now, this is what then happens. Your neighbors are doing that which you are not doing. So by by doing that, now you are losing that because by the time you decide to say, okay, fine, maybe you want to say, you are saying, no, I'm going to sell my house. I need to paint here and there. I need to fix here and there. Imagine the amount of money that you're going to be fixing your house at with whether you are spending a good 200,000 in fixing the house and your values in the area only a million right. Remember, it doesn't mean that because you are thinking for 200,000, you can sell for for over a million right. Your cap values is a million right, meaning that people are selling for a million right. You are listening for 800,000 because you are losing 200,000 that you could have had in value enhancement over time and then your maintenance. So it's quite important. Many people leave it as a last thing to do and that you can work like that because remember, if you are doing it constantly, prodically, you are able to maintain things and even to replace them because the moment that they play, it becomes a direct thing. And I think we understand the amount of work that goes into maintenance and how on top of it we ultimately need to be in. I can really see some of the questions and comments at home that speaks to this and really looking for insight on how they can better manage their properties. But we're going to get to that just after this brief break. During the break, we're going to find out who the lucky winner of the 500 grand that is in the money bag this evening is. Remember, if you see your name on the screen, you have to drop us a message down here below in order to claim that cash prize. Let's take a look at who this evening's lucky winner is. And that lucky winner this evening is Elton Tombeini. Elton Tombeini, the lucky winner of the 500 grand in the money bag. And of course, I do hope Elton is indeed watching the live, drop us a message down here below in order to claim your prize. Elton Tombeini, 500 grand is up to grabs for you this evening. And as we continue our conversation looking at how maintenance enhances a property value in conversation with O'Hoshi Sansa, who is the CEO at Mkhalla Gwena Values, and taking your questions and comments across our social media pages. We've got a question here coming through from Instagram, from YouTube rather. It's coming from Tracy Stanley saying, I'm currently busy with maintenance on my property. This is so timely. It's important. It's a property rather that is 45 years old, and it's quite expensive to maintain, but it's needed. Greetings from Cape Town. And I think, you know, the big thing there, O'Hoshi, is that the older properties certainly do pose their own challenges when it comes to maintaining them. What did you say? Yes, they do, because on the older properties, some of the finishing is no longer available. Like, for instance, you have those doors rotting. So some of this, some of them have got some very old type of doors, like this Cape style house, the house that they have in the, in the Western Cape. I remember I did the evaluation of one. It was a guest house a while back. Those guys were battling to find a similar type of doors that they had fitted there. So they tried maintaining and keeping the doors in a good shape for many years, but eventually they had to reach a point where they have to replace now. It then meant that now they had to go and get, find someone who does woodwork to try and design the similar type of door for them. Can you imagine having to have a custom-made door for you compared to just rushing and going to a hardware store and buying the similar door. In insurance that such a structure remains in sound in place, it was a quite high. And it's unfortunate that on an old one you are likely to spend more, but to avoid having to spend more, you need to do what the lady just said now that she's doing, where regularly she ensures that she's doing correctly, because you kind of have to do it later. Do it all the time, avoid having to spend much more. And I think you're correct that this is definitely one of those things that you do not want to put off too long, because the extent of the damage only keeps getting worse, if you don't get on top of it as much as possible. And more of your questions and comments at home. We've actually got two coming through from Tiatu Muñay also on YouTube. And the first question is, how do you quantify how much does the damage cost in the property which will be included in the valuing exercise? And the second question is, is there a formula you use to calculate the value of the property? I'll take the last one first. There is no formula used to determine a property value. On the residential valuations, we're purely looking at the comparable method of valuation that compares your house directly to those around it, or in the vicinity, for them to determine the value. But now, on the first question, what happens in practice where residential houses are concerned? I'll answer it now, trying to wear a cap of the banter. They are saying, if the market value of the houses in the area is a million round, and the cost of estimations of fixing that house is 300,000, it doesn't mean that a notional bank can only pay 700,000 for it, because they're going to spend 100,000 to look like the neighborhood. So, can you see now that we're talking about direct cost there, where you are saying that, had you done what you needed to have done over time, you could have ended yourself an extra 300,000 like the rest of the people. But in terms of maintenance, you unfortunately are sort of compelled to take care of it, or else it will take care of itself by refusing to give you the number that you require later on, which is unfortunate. And taking more of your questions and comments this evening as I'm in conversation with Hoshi Sasa, Serifing was saying important also not to over-enhance the property. Overcapitalizing Hoshi at the end, I see this quite a lot with a lot of the residential properties, particularly houses where you're living in the house and it was a family house, you bought it for you and your family, and perhaps your kids and your wife, your state, though your husband stayed there for a bit, and you've enhanced it to put marble finishes, but of course you've over-capitalized it. When it's time to sell, it becomes quite a huge burden to offload it, especially when you look at how much is available in that particular street suburb and where the market at the time is. I had a friend Zama who lived in Midrend, he and the wife had a house that was improved with some tech. You could actually from an app open kettings and close kettings and put lights on and switch off and whatnot, and even open the gate from wherever you are. The cost of that is a few hundreds of thousands, but think about it, here comes Hoshi and family looking for a house. We are only looking for accommodation, we so happen to like an area where the house is located, it's on the market, I feel that you know what, I can take this one for my family, the nice four bedroom house, the house there, the rest of us, but now we get in there, the guy now says nah, but now remember this one is not like the one next door, I now have this high tech stuff that I put in here, I'm not looking for those, I'm looking for accommodation. So how many, how many people walk in through the door with an estate agent will be saying, I think I like this one with whatever it comes with, is unfortunately over capitalized, meaning that if the market value ought to be only a million rand and we have spent 100,000 in putting those fancy things, it's going to take it with whatever it comes with, because remember over capitalization as well means more money spent on maintenance unnecessarily. And I think that's the crux of it, it's the unnecessary part, right, and especially when you factor in, when you want to offload that asset, because with some people they'll say, look I'm putting all this money and I know that I'm spending more than what I'd be able to get out, because I'm not going to sell, this is one of those that I may want to pass on to my children, but I also want to enjoy all these perks. And so no matter what happens, I am holding on to this property, I want the automated systems in the house and other houses in the area may not be at that level, but I'm okay with it. And I think over capitalizing unfortunately happens far too often, where we spend quite a significant amount of money on finishes and don't consider how we're never going to be able to recover that kind of cost. And it really is an important thing to always be mindful of. And, you know, going more to some of your comments and questions at home, at saying good evening, private property family, I agree, some properties are so terrible, poorly maintained, but yet the price is so high. Serifi and Wacheng coming back saying it's always better to try maintenance yourself than be dealt through, or rather yourself than be dealt with through valuation. And Tia Tu Mu Nhai as other questions saying do you consider the dirtiness, the war, the dirtiness on the wall in your report? So when you look at the report, I mean, is the stage of the cleanliness, you know, in a house in this instance, you know, is that something that you kind of factor in when you do the report? It has to be considered. I mean, think about it. You walk into a house, you've got drawings on the wall, kids have been using permanent markers, drawing things on the wall, they were writing stuff, is dirty, the paint work looks like it was done some hundred years ago and stuff like that. Now, even if they will say to you, let's say the market bill is a million dollars, you walk into a house where the guy says no, my asking price is a million dollars. You now need to think about it, is this house habitable in its condition? The outright answer can be a yes, because for you to make it habitable, it needs to be cleaned up or it needs to be painted before you can now move in. So as long as the buyer you walk in and say, I can live with this, it then means that it needs to be considered in us doing our evaluation. And we also need to be able to report it to the bank or the U.S., the person instructing us for a property bill. We'll come back and say to you, yes, we are on site, we found that on the back of the house in the yard, there are trees chopped off, there is grass piled up, it's like they are formating some lucerne veils in there. Would you want to go in there and take it like that? It doesn't mean that the person selling it to you, they must be very good of what you're not comfortable with before you buy, or else if you think of yourself, you're going to have to make money and expense it in ensuring that it's habitable for you to move in. And I think the big thing there, Khushi, is especially for people who are looking to buy a house and will make the example of a house, is if it's one of those houses where you know that when you buy it, you won't even need to paint the house. As soon as it's handed over to you, you're able to just move in. In the event where you decide to paint, it's because you just want a fresh look, for instance, as opposed to it being a necessity. Then you know to either play around with the price and how much you can play around with the purchase price. Where you can see is still quite a significant amount of work that you may need to do in order for it to get to a place where you can move in and be able to comfortably live there. You can certainly factor that in before you make your offer because you really do need to think of those little costs because they stack up. Sometimes you may think that it's insignificant, but when you look at the overall costs that you're going to be spending from the acquisition side, the moving side, and then of course, even minor maintenance that you may want to do when you pick up that property, you need to factor it in. I've never bought a property that I didn't need to do something before somebody lived in it because I was mostly buying for investment purposes. Whether it was paint or some other thing that needed to be done, and that's something that I always then factor in when I make that offer just almost budgeting for I need to change the floors. Meaning that I need to certainly put in new flooring and that's also quite a significant cost. Sometimes you may need to, for instance, change world drops in that particular place because the ones that are there are so terribly run down that nobody can possibly move in and live there. Those are some of the things that you always need to consider, especially when you are about to make an offer. So if it means you kind of drive down that cost a little bit so that you're able to make sure that you pay for those services once you acquire the property, then you absolutely need to do so. Going back to more of your questions and comments this evening, we've got 1979 kitchens and bathrooms versus 2021 rental expectations. And we get them quite a lot. I think a lot of us complain about kitchens and bathrooms. So if you're coming through, say 1979's Omer's wallpaper, that's another big one, old wallpaper that just will not come off the wall is the absolute worst. You can't paint over it because it changes the texture of the wall and it doesn't want to come off the wall. You almost need to scrape it off and they have to have the wall placed it again and properly. And those are things that this is a cost that you need to factor in before you make an offer. And as we round up our conversation this evening, any final tips for our viewers have heard when it comes to important maintenance things they need to be on top of on a regular, even cyclical basis that is going to fundamentally help enhance their property but also maintain the value of the property so that should one day they want to perhaps sell the property or even refinance the property and access a bit of equity in that property, they may be able to do so. Look, enhancing your property value is important. You have to start from the outside on the property itself. Keep your property clean. Work on your garden, clean your yard because appearance is everything. There's no person who want to walk in and want to think about moving in after you live in a property that doesn't look like you can care of. That's number one. Keep your property clean. Whatever breaks needs to be fixed. You can be having a gate handing the most people not to work in the bottom missing and you expect me to buy it as a buy. That's the outside of the property itself. And on the road, ensure that the infrastructure comes up immediately because the right side of damages will cost you more money to fix later on. Then on the inside, keep your alls, keep your alls. You're fair about it. You're used to them. One day you decide to sell. When a buy comes in, you'll be able to pick those up. Like you said yourself was that there's no way that can, if you see that I need to spend money fixing one, two, three, four, five on the house. So whatever you do, ensure that whatever appears to be damaged taken care of and also periodically. Ensure that you do minor painting here the way you can. Like I said, God just needs you to be painted. Any still work around the property needs to be painted so that you take care of the rest and whatever comes. The last thing that I'll mention is that when buying a house, you need, I need better advice that know how this works. We are able to say to you, let's do you, let's, let's conduct a report for you, suspend what we are saying to you. There is a, yeah, not all people is equally correct. They are avoiding it. For all those things, you need to understand yourself about so that the time you serve, that's the next one. And we are going to have apologies there to our viewers that tail in those last few seconds. Of course, she was breaking. We do apologize for that. We know that our signal was not too great, but it held up for most of our conversation is so painful for that. So the big thing is be on top of all your maintenance needs. Start from the outside. And of course, work your way inside. You want to make sure that you, you know, you nibble in the bud as early as possible. You're consistent with it. Some of it is cyclical. We know that in winter, the leaves dry. We know what happens in winter. And so there's certain maintenance that you do during that winter season so that by the time rainy season comes, you don't have to deal with certain repercussions. So those are some of the great tips that you can certainly use in your property at home. And you want to make sure that you're on top of this one, because there's so many different ways that you can unlock value in your respective property. And Hoshi, we are going to leave it there this evening. Thank you so much for joining us. It has been a pleasure to have you on the show. And I think Hoshi's signal might just be fading. Thank you very much. And that is Hoshi. Thank you. Thank you very much. And that is Hoshi Sarsa, the CEO at Mahalakwena value is wrapping up the Wednesday edition of the private property podcast with myself, Ozamantomwa, Kumalo. Unfortunately, our winner, Alton and Tumbe, he did not raise his hand and takes us down here below. So we've got to roll over tomorrow evening, going to have a thousand rands up for grabs in our competition. So do you make sure that you continue commenting on the pinpost on our Facebook page to up your odds of being one of our lucky winners. Well, that's it for myself, Ozamantomwa, Kumalo, and the rest of the private property podcast team. I'll be back on your screens tomorrow evening at 7 p.m. We can look forward to the first time home bar show with Estee Klaasen at 8 p.m. until then hope you're staying home and staying safe.