 You don't have to let the pressure from outside to affect you. The same car that I was driving into in the 10 when I started working, I'm still driving the same kind of a car. I haven't changed a lot of things, but my salary has been changing over the years, but the lifestyle still remains the same. Hi and welcome back to the first time home by a show. I'm your host, Esti Klaasen. We are in the absolutely amazing Santon, Johannesburg, as you can see my beautiful view behind me today. And of course I'd like to first think properties.com and Eboquagrain for giving us this opportunity in this absolutely gorgeous apartment. If you are interested in short-term or long-term rentals, do contact them because they can make your dreams come true. Imagine living in Santon in this gorgeous apartment because it's absolutely stunning. And without further ado you know that we do have shows coming to you every weekday this week. We've got Zaman Tungwakumalo with the private property podcast that's live from Monday to Wednesday every night at 7 p.m. And of course we've got Mbali with the farming or agriculture podcast every Tuesday and Thursday at 8 p.m. And of course Chad Vaviris travels Johannesburg looking at amazing mansions all the way from Stain City to Houghton to Santon. If you're interested in investing in property now is your chance. Follow Chad as he tours these amazing houses around Johannesburg. And without further ado I am sitting with the absolutely amazing Mr. Percy single. Good evening Percy. Hi. Thank you so much for taking the time out to spend the day with us and tell us a little bit about you know how savings and and how this helped you actually become such an amazing property investor. Percy managed to actually purchase three properties during lockdown. That is absolutely amazing. And I think the key thing here is that you managed to save. So let's get into it. Let's let's start you know all the way when you first found out about this thing called savings. Okay. Thank you. I started yearning about saving back then in the church. I grew up in a church and my mother was a cleaner in a church. She worked there for 15 years and then she was taking me to every conferences and every events. But then that's when I learned a lot about savings. So I was already waiting for the opportunity to start implementing all those things that I've learned. So when I started working back then into in the 10 I was earning just roughly around 6000. It was just internship or in service training. But I was saving around 3000 on a monthly basis. That's where everything started. So that's when I learned the principle of saving. It's where I learned the discipline of saving. Because now at the moment I'm saving a higher amount. But it doesn't matter the amount that I'm saving. Now what is important is what I learned then when I was saving that 3000. That's when I learned the discipline the consistency. That's when I learned to sacrifice and to also not be affected by the pressure outside. Because as I've studied civil engineering there's a lot of pressure and a lot of expectations. But I don't let that affect my saving journey. But she just had to let us know that he's studying civil engineering and you're also doing your master's now. It's within the same obviously profession. So congratulations. But and I have a question about that though. Right. Because I know doing your master's is not easy and all this time and all this yes of course you're disciplined and I feel like savings actually disciplines you for other things in life. You know other things other things that come across your path. How are you managing to do your master's and save and invest in property because I believe investing in property is a job on its own. How do you manage to do all of that? I believe it's about putting the priorities in place so that your priorities are in place and then you avoid certain things. At the moment there's a lot of things that I'm avoiding so that I can focus mainly on the master's on investing and as well as my day-to-day job. So there's a lot of things that I could be doing now which are for entertainment that I've put aside just so that I can focus on those goals. It's almost like changing your lifestyle. Yes. So what would Percy be doing if he didn't have to save all this money? There's a lot of things that I could be doing including traveling. There's a lot of places I would like to go but I can't go there on a monthly basis. Now it has to be maybe once a year and then so that I can I can I managed on focusing on saving that money for the goals that I have. And I want to go back to you know your upbringing and you know being raised in in church and finding out about how to save and and one thing I noticed about you especially just before we the show and we chatted you saved exactly 50% of your salary every month for a good few years right? How did you manage to do that because that is disciplined on a whole other level? Oh yes it goes back to to the same thing I was talking about of discipline to say you don't have to let the pressure from outside to affect you. At the same time that I was driving in 2010 when I started working I'm still driving the same kind of a car I haven't changed a lot of things but my salary has been changing over the years but the lifestyle still remains the same so there's been a lot of changes in terms of even income I'm no more relying only on my salary I have other side businesses but the lifestyle it's not changing what is changing it's the saving so even if I'm earning more now the principle remains the same the same principle that I applied back then when I was earning 6000. What would you say is Percy's because so you you're a property investor now right? Yes. You bought three properties during lockdown how was that possible besides having a saving strategy how did you manage to do that because that's absolutely amazing. There's a lot of advantage now during Covid because the interest went down so even the affordability it's before you couldn't afford the house now you can afford it because it has impacted that so I use that advantage to say maybe I also 50 which says they need the income of 50 000 I couldn't afford them but at the moment now I can afford it so I bought a lot of properties now and then I was also able to develop them or to extend them and make them into rental incomes so that even if the interest goes up again I am not affected that badly because I have a strong income coming through. You spoke about you know paying one property of cash but before I even get to that I know that because when I read your bio there was a lot of figures and a lot of numbers and I want to dive deeper into that like right give us a little bit of your journey from 2010 all the way up until now like how you managed to save these amounts of money and how you just a little bit about that. Okay I started in 2010 and then I was earning 6 000 in 2010 and then I was saving 3 000 then I was staying in Puma Langa which accommodation it's more affordable than year in counting then when I started working as a professional that was 2011 as a professional engineer then they were paying me 10 000 then then I was saving 5000 so I saved that 3000 for a year then I had 36 000 then I saved the 5000 for a year I had 60 000 so combined I had something like 96 000 then I saved again for a few years just up until 2013 then I had 120 000 I went and took that 120 000 and bought my first car cash then after that I saved again but I didn't have a goal to say this is what I'm saving for and then again that's a problem to many people to say just to put the money in the bank it doesn't help because the interest is very low you can find you've got 100 000 but you are getting 600 on interest on a monthly basis which is not helping you earn anything so I started to decide to say let me go into property business that's when I went and bought my first house in 2015 so when I bought it I told myself if I could pay off my if I could pay my my car cash with the saving of three years it means I can pay off this house in a period of three years but then I was now saving earning 30 000 so I was saving 15 000 on a monthly basis for a period of three years after that three years in 2018 I had 520 000 which I took and went and pay off the first house then after that for two years from 2018 to 2020 I was not buying any house until last year 2020 that's when I started to say now let me start buying more properties for business then I bought three properties from last year to now so mr. Percy you spoke about you know how you managed to save up so much and buy that car cash and we currently live in a society where you know as soon as we do get that fat paycheck at the end of the month and debt has become a part of the we're part of the debt system and one thing I've learned on the show is that not all debt is bad debt and that word credit comes up quite often and I think especially among us as young adults it's so difficult for us to shift our mindset and to invest not even invest to build up this credit for things that we do not necessarily need so Percy my question to you is you know how do we as young adults avoid debt avoid living and a necessarily luxurious lifestyle because you know we've heard stories of where you get your paycheck and you have to pay off your car you have to pay off your rent and then bundle the pleated and now you're out here borrowing money from friends and family so how do we avoid this debt yeah no that's a very sad reality because most of the people that I talk about at I talked to about investment they are dealing with the same problem where you find a person is getting paid today but after two weeks they don't have anything even transport managers to go to work but I feel like the way to solve it is to try to avoid a small debt like to go and take a loan for small debts which are things that you can save and pay those things cash so I will say when you go to take a debt it should be a debt for something very important and then something that again it can generate money for you because there are debts that we really are unnecessarily like debts which you find you have all these small accounts accounts for clothes accounts for phones accounts so in that position you won't be able to have extra money to save in order to venture into property investment so I would advise to say let's try to avoid unnecessary debts or the small debts where it's something that you can you can pay cash and then if something you cannot afford it's better to just not have it yeah yeah because we end up entering into all these small debts and then they keep us from investing into other things the bigger things yes because I think you're right we focus on what's right in front of us and now instead of the future the generational wealth you begin to talk about all of those you know you talk about small debts being clothing accounts furniture accounts and all these things but a lot of us are now opening these accounts because we'd like to start our credit record and we'd like to have a good credit score to invest in that property to approve for that bond later on so how do we then do that I don't think that one debt can really take you out of course but it's because we end up having a lot of those small debts and then when you combine all that money that you have to do the repayment you'll find it becomes a huge amount but if it's just a one debt I don't think it can really take you out of the journey it's that excessive mentality yes heavy you want all of this now and to do that that that could be you know determined to yourself yeah even that one account again you still have to manage it properly because even if it's for a clue it can end up the repayment can end up being very high depending on what you are doing with it so it goes back to managing or managing your lifestyle yes yes so which goes down to the same thing to say if I'm a civil engineer it doesn't mean I must go and buy an expensive car I can tell myself that for now for this period I'm just investing but I know in the future I will buy that expensive car but at the moment it's about me driving from my place to work and being able to save that money that I can save so at the moment now I save above $80,000 a month but the car that I'm driving you cannot compare it to that it's a very minimum compared to what I save yes but you also went ahead and said earlier that to you it feels like a mistake paying the house of cash yeah you should have paid the why why was that why did that feel like a mistake it felt like a mistake because I was saving it on a separate account a bank account which the interest is very small so if I was I was paying $5,800 on a on the bond and then I was saving $15,000 so what I should have done I should have taken that $15,000 and pay it with the bond with the $5,800 like to to pay $20,800 instead of putting money on a separate account so by putting money on a separate account it made me to pay off that house in three years but if I had put that money on top of the $5,800 I would have paid that our house in two years six months which I would have saved myself six months and that six months is a lot of money because it's the combination of the money I was saving plus the money I was paying on the bond which is the $20,800 times six which is above $120,000 which I should have I would have saved myself from that but now that's a mistake you're never gonna make again yes you spoke about what's very important this is not just about saving no it's about having a goal as to why you're saving and that's important right and I want to find out from you what is Percy's goals going forward because you're obviously still saving going forward my goal is to invest more into property I'm focusing more on the properties in the township which is I buy just the two bedroom then I can add around six bachelors or 10 bachelors and you find I'm renting each bachelor 3.5 which in the whole just one standalone I can make around $30,000 which means if I bought the house for $700,000 I'm paying around $5,300 on the bond but I'm making $30,000 and to run that whole house it can maybe take me less than $10,000 which means $20,000 is a profit so that $20,000 adds to my saving for there for for another project I think what's so key just listening to you speak is that we do our research especially when it comes to how much you're investing how much you're getting back so return on investment this is key and it feels like you know just listening to you you can hear that you've done all of this research and that is why and I think this is also important for the viewers you know when saving do the research prior so that you also know how much to save and how much you're going to get out of this deal in the next up and coming years right and I wanted to find could you just spoke about your goals but also you know back in the years was a 2010 you made a mistake within this property industry this is the first time home by a show and I think the most you know we the fear that comes with being a first time home by our first time investor is that we might be making a mistake so what advice would you give us and the advice that I will give to most people is that buy early because most of us we get employed and then we rent for for so many years and then if you are to rent in a place with 7000 for example and then you rent in that place for 10 years that that's 840 000 that you have wasted and then it's not going into into it's not going into your your name it's going into somebody's name so the moment you buy early you are buying cheap and then you are also saving a lot of money for yourself and then you can pay off that house proper quickly and then you can be able to do other projects that's very important I also wanted to find out from you because you know we get advice from so many people come on to the show and I'm sure that you've gotten some life-changing advice from people because you also you're a mentor now but you've been mentored as well what would you say was the biggest lesson or actually the most valuable piece of advice that you hold here that continues to guide your property journey going forward okay yes I've been watching a show for some time and then I I feel like this is a very important show because it's giving information to the people and to most people they are leaking information and I will advise somebody out there to encourage their friends to watch shows like this because they really help in your journey so what I would say is that first it's about investing because this is one of the lessons that I've learned that I used to focus too much on paying off things but when you venture into the property business you find out to it's not only about paying off it's about increasing the income so if I focus on paying one house it can take me around three years or five years for others or even more but if I focus on getting another property I am opening another stream of income of around 30 000 so instead of me focusing on paying off one house it's better for me to be saving that money so that I can build more bachelors so my strategy at the moment is that I buy a house with a bond and then I use my own money my own savings to extend that house so that's one of the lessons to say let me not just focus on saying I want to pay off these houses as soon as possible let me focus on growing the company and then growing the income so that I can do bigger projects in the future and what you know there are obviously people who watch the show that want to do exactly what you're doing but it's either they you know can't afford it right now or they're struggling to save because you know being young it's very difficult to change your lifestyle because you want to do the nice things we're sitting in Santa right now and I'm sure this is you know maybe want to be on the regular basis but we can't especially if our goal is to invest in property and if our goal is to to save and to become to be in a position where generational wealth and financial freedom is what we love by you know and so what would you say to people like that or just right now they really want to but they can't I believe it's important to to learn the principles of saving because in every investment that you want to do you'll have a problem with funding so if you go out there today you say I'm looking for funding to build by cellars you might struggle or it might never happen so it's better to exercise that discipline of saving and then avoid premature soft life where you get soft life before you even invest so it's better to focus on investing at a younger age so that when you grow up you can be able to live that sense of life because that's what you want you want the soft life per se that's so important and I just before you know we're almost we're gonna wrap up shortly before that I wanted to find out from you property investment yes in three words what does that mean to you for me I will just say make extra money I will say that because when I look at my career as a civil engineer I've been doing I've been an engineer for now 11 years and then I'm looking at the property investment that I'm doing on the side it's just around two years if I'm not including the first house because the first house was just for staying so I've just been investing in property for business for two years but when I look at my salary and the money that I'm making through property investment the difference is just 7,000 so my property investment it's about to overtake the salary which I have acquired over a period of 11 years and this is less than two years that I've been doing property investment yeah so I will say is a property investment is the way to go because if you look outside there and then you look at the increases at a job place you'll find an increase after deduction is just 500 which you can't do anything with but if you choose to invest on things like property you are in you are releasing something like 30,000 instead of just waiting for next year to get an increase so it's very important now for anyone to venture into such kind of businesses and you bought at the right time right and you went and you bought you didn't even play around with lockdown you went and you bought three not just one you bought three and you just took it and you just went with this journey and you know you've obviously been mentored and in the past two years because you're you're a young property investor that's a recent journey for you and as we can see and proof you are proof that the journey is almost surpassing your employment right with regards to the income and the money that you make your return on investment so Percy we just spoke about how you know your salary or property investment is almost about to just take over your your actual salary that you get from civil engineering and I'm sure there are other engineers out there watching the show right now who are not on your level just yet you know maybe they've just graduated we've got young graduates maybe they haven't been in the industry for 11 years and they also want to take that leap of faith and just start investing in property what advice would you give to them if they're not exactly earning that 30 000 just yet what advice would you give to them? The advice that I will give is that you just have to start with what you have to start small because most of us we want to start fancy and then that's not possible because we don't have the revenue to do that so for example let me go to a different kind of business if you want to invest into a restaurant you don't have to come here to Centen and try to get a spot in Centen when you are starting you can start in the township and just get a corner place where you can start your business there and you don't have to be in the level where you are saying I'm building 10 bachelors in the same time you can just start with two bachelors and then with time you know you've got a plan you're gonna grow and then you will reach that time where you can do bigger projects so I think the important lesson here and it's something that we spoke about last week on our show as well is investing in yourself because what's so important is your mindset needs to change and shift as well because we are easily influenced by social media and we do want to come to Centen immediately we don't want to start you know at home in the township we want to I mean most young people as soon as we graduate what do we want to do we want to move to Centen we want to move out of you know the Cassian whatever the case may be and I think what's so important then to the viewers is to change your mindset to change your mindset to suit your budget you cannot be living a centen life on a different kind of budget and I think so I think that's a very good lesson so Percy I'd just like to wrap up the show again thank you so much for for sharing your story with us you know I love hearing these real loved experiences because it just shows everyone at home that they too wherever they're sitting whatever position they in you know can have people sitting at home now that decide actually you know what next month I'm saving 50% of my salary I cannot continue this lifestyle and that's what we're trying to educate and motivate and those who are driven tend to do this and tend to love a better lifestyle and start investing in this property so just before we close off Percy we just finished a beautiful month of celebrating women these empowered women and we've had amazing women come on to the show and of course inspired amazing women at home what would you say is your advice to these powerful women and if they want to take that leap of faith to also just start investing in because we need more women in the property industry what do you think yes no I think the same and women are very close to my heart even on this this weekend I will be in a show where we are talking to women so I feel like women at the moment there's a lot of mentality out there that when you are dating somebody and then this person has money you feel like you are entitled to what they have and then at the moment you find the ladies are just celebrating to be on the passenger seat or to go to somebody's house and you do your live videos there and then you feel like it's an achievement but that's not where we should be at we have to really try to advise women to start things for themselves in order for them to join things like property investment we have a number of them that are coming through and it's very good to see them doing such kind of investment so that at the end they can be able to stand up by themselves even if they're in a relationship where it's an abusive relationship some of them you find them sitting down without being able to live that relationship because they depend fully on this person but if they can be able to stand up by themselves they can be able to know their worth and to live when the situation doesn't suit you anymore so I feel like women it's their time now to stand up and do it for themselves yes so I think you know the fact that woman and you're right we need to take that leap of faith and invest in our own properties invest in our own things you're right woman we need to stop being in the passenger seat let's drive and yeah I think that's very important thank you so much thank you last question for you Percy I want to end off the show on a very light note and a very good note generational wealth is very important to a lot of us and a lot of us have spoken about what it means for us obviously it means you know a legacy leaving this generation leaving funds behind for our grandchildren even that's how far we want to take it but what does generational wealth mean for you Percy I tweet actually means leaving the place better than the way you found it so if I came to earth now and then I've been through a lot of struggles growing up and then I've been through a lot I don't have to leave the people around me or let's say my kids in the same situation which I was also going through so I have to invest in such a way that I'm knowing that when I leave my kids will be in a very stable place so if I have three kids and then I'm able to give them each a property I know already I've left them in a very good place and they've also left them with the education and the knowledge to do the same for their kids so Percy you spoke about how you know you took your property investment journey and you take one property and build bachelor rooms and all of these things so that one property then gives you a good return on investment and I'm sure there are people you know who are ready who have been approved and ready to to take that leap of faith and invest in property but now they're sitting with the problem where they don't know whether or not they should invest in Soweto or Hillbrow or Township areas or should they invest once in the suburbs what would you say what what advice would you give those who are ready to make that decision but they can't decide where location is so important yeah no that's a very important question because most of us we are confused between the two to say where must I buy should I buy an apartment in Middent or should I buy a house in Cosmo City between the two but for me I feel like it depends on what do you want that property for if you want the property just for staying and then you are a lady you just finish university and you feel like you won't be safe to stay in the Township then it's okay you can buy that apartment but you should know that this is just for staying so when you move out when you decide to buy a standalone house you might have to sell that house because it won't really generate any income because if you are to look at it if you buy a house for an apartment for 700 000 and then you are paying 5.3 on the on the bond and then you still have to pay levies you still have to pay all this you find out to at the end of the day you are paying around 8 000 so if you get a tenant to say can you please stay in this apartment you might not make any income at all you might even have to take some of your money to support that apartment but whereas if you are going for investment if you buy a property in a Township like in the moment i'm having a project which i'm busy with i'm in the planning stage when i'm about to build 10 bachelors so i buy a two bedroom and then i'm building 10 bachelors so you can see or even those 10 bachelors times 3.5 if i'm renting them 3.5 it's already 35 000 and then they still a two bedroom that i'm renting out which i can rent out 5.5 so the full amount from that house can be around 40 000 that you are making which if you are to check an apartment you can never make that 40 000 from an apartment because it's a fixed structure which you cannot extend there's nothing you can do about it and then the other problem that really concerns me is that you own the structure you don't own the land so i feel like i want to own the land and then i have the flexibility to do what i want not only on the property investment if you want to do other business like saloon or whatever you have that flexibility in a township stand where you can do different kind of businesses so i feel like for investment a township investment is the best but for staying apartment it's fine you should not feel bad if you have already bought an apartment it's okay but not for investment and that's what's so important because you know this leads back to your why what is your why why are you investing in this property what do you want to achieve from this property and that already helps you determine the location yes thank you so much Percy for joining us so our viewers at home we hope you enjoyed the show and learned a little bit more about saving strategies that's all from us this evening see you guys again next week Wednesday live at 8 p.m take care and stay safe