 Yes it's that time of day, it's time for winter home on afternoon express where you stand the chance to win a luxury apartment on the Valdivia state valued at over 3 million rand. Over the next few weeks we'll be taking a look at some beautiful properties listed on privateproperty.co.za and specific rooms in them. Today we focus on the guest bedroom and joining us in the loft is the lovely Carol Reynolds from Pam Golding to guide us through these properties and share her expert advice. Welcome to the loft. Thanks so much for having me, it's great to be here. How much would you value our loft? Our loft is valued a lot of money. Is it sellable? Your loft is very sellable, especially with us in it. Wow, okay. So Carol I was checking out private property earlier and saw three beautiful homes in Durban North. Tell us about this area and what the property market is doing there. You know Durban North is one of the most amazing places to live. It's literally five minutes from the airport, from the beaches, from the CBD. So what we're seeing is the market generally in the country this year has been a little bit cautious. I think there's a bit of political instability and it always has a knock on effect on property. But the northern corridor of Natal from Durban North right through to Belito is an absolute hotspot. I think what's happened is a lot of Johannesburg families are relocating down there. They're loving the climate and the lifestyle offering, the schools are fantastic. So we're sitting in a little bit of a babble really and our market is booming, which is fantastic. There's constant demand and actually we're short on supply at the moment. So it's quite an exciting market to be working in. That is going to be so interesting and I think also with those families that are living there, there's a specific room in the house that's going to be one of the most valuable and that is the guest bedroom. And it's so exciting because when we're at home at the moment our contestants are busy working on their guest bedrooms. What exactly does a guest bedroom do to the property market there? Does it increase drastically, minimally? I think the best way to describe the impact of a guest bedroom is to look at its saleability. So if you have a property with three bedrooms, you're going to take longer to sell it. Whereas if you add that fourth or particularly a fifth bedroom, we find that the time that it sits on the market is a lot shorter. I'll give you a classic example. We had a home listed at five and a half million in Durban North, an absolutely beautiful home, but it only had three bedrooms. So it took almost a year to sell. But it had four or even five bedrooms that would have sold it in about 45 days. That's a big difference. It's a big difference in terms of the length of time that it takes to sell a home. And as soon as you have that fourth bedroom then you're opening up your buyer pool and you've got a wider sector of the market that you're appealing to. So it is definitely a great value add. Speaking of five bedrooms, all these homes that I mentioned earlier have five bedrooms. Would you recommend they be sold as they are or maybe turned into an alternative like a home office? I personally think you should keep the bedrooms as is when you put your property on the market because when a buyer does a search, for instance, on private property, the key words that they look for is number of bedrooms and number of bathrooms. So you actually want to maximise your bedrooms and they're beautiful to decorate. So from a photographic perspective, when you're marketing a home, a guest bedroom really does look aesthetically appealing, much nicer than a utility room. And then your estate agent will take the buyers to view the property and tell the buyers about the options for converting that room to, say, an office or a children's playroom or even a pajama lounge. But I would definitely enter the market with maximum bedrooms and keep them beautifully decorated. Yeah. Let's take a look at some that we found. Okay, super. Talk us through these. This home is in probably the best address in Durban North. It's an absolutely beautiful home. It's got five bedrooms, it's also got a tennis court, a lovely lush garden. I think what people really like about Durban North is that it's a family haven. So the homes have lovely gardens, they've established gardens, they level for the children to play on. And that home in particular is perfectly positioned. Spacious too. Absolutely. This home is one of my personal favourites. It's on a double stand in Durban North. So you can actually subdivide and it also sits in a cul-de-sac. So I often think it would be amazing to convert it into a mini estate with two homes. Oh, good ideas. I love cul-de-sac. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. No, so that's a great one. But when it comes to bed guest bedrooms, that's obviously the most important ones. Yeah. Do you have your... Is that the one that you enjoyed with the best guest bedroom? Well, there's another one that we've got that actually sits on Fairway, which is right down on a golf course in Durban North on the Beechwood golf course. And then it overlooks the golf course to the sea. This one's got great bones. I always say when you look at a property, you should look for good bones. Yes. Because when you've got good bones, then you can tweak it with small cosmetics over time. And it's got five bedrooms all on suite. So you actually can't really distinguish between the main and the guest bedroom. They're both so beautiful. The proportions are fantastic. Sure. So that really is a special home as well. I think so too. I mean, you just mentioned that. That's probably the one that you would say is a great investment piece because that guest bedroom is so beautiful. I'm pretty sure everyone around the country is busy liquidating all of their, all the other estates that they've got to make sure they can go and invest in this area. And I see a boom coming very, very soon. I think that was also one of my favourites because they've got an open lawn with a fountain. It's so beautiful. Good flow, 100%. So you've got good flow and good bones. You can do so much with a property. Carol, it's an honour to have you there. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's been great. Well, right down afternoon Express, we are talking all things homes and you get a chance to win one. Exactly, Danila. But first, it's time to announce the winner of that smeg retro stand mixer. Congratulations to Alicia de Cuercaire from Brits and from all of us here at Afternoon Express. We really hope you enjoy the prize. Now, remember that you can now vote for your favourite guest bedroom by simply logging on to privateproperty.co.za by casting your vote, you stand a 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 Veldevee valued at over 3 million rand. I mean, that is so ridiculously exciting. Keep your eyes on Afternoon Express every weekday as our three design contestants gradually transform three properties at Veldevee estate using finishes provided by Caesar 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 probably brought to you by Private Property in association with Nedbank. After the break, we put the finishing touches to our anti-pust-op letter and we'll be right back after this.