 And that's how we've created all these great tools to support South Africans on the journey of home ownership. I think it's important for our country. And we really encourage the market to really take that step, think about it. Now is the time. I think the environment is really favourable. Good evening and welcome back to the First Time Home Bioshow. I'm your host, Estie Klaassen. As you heard tonight, I'm sitting with the wonderful Zyde manual all the way from Apsa. Before we get started, as you know, we've got amazing content coming to you live every weeknight this week. We've got some Antungua Kamala with the private property podcast that's live on Facebook and YouTube at 7 p.m. from Monday to Friday. And of course Mbali comes to you with the agriculture podcast that's Tuesday and Thursday at 8 p.m. We cannot miss Chad Vavieros as he travels around Mzanzi, looks at amazing mansions, townhouses, apartments, all the way in Johannesburg. Chad is Friday and Monday evening, start of your week with the bang with Chad at 8 p.m. And of course I come to your screens every Wednesday at 8 p.m. And tonight is no different. I'm chatting to, like I said, Zyde manual all the way from Apsa. We talk about how we can make your home ownership journey easy and the digital platforms that Apsa has done and taken into consideration to make this process easy for us. Good evening, Zyde. How are you? Evening. Evening, Estie. And thanks for having me today. I'm wanting to sit down and have this conversation. I remember having a chat with you at one of our panel discussions and we wanted to talk, you know, just about how the access to even getting a home loan, you know, being a young woman of Kale in South Africa, all of these things. But we'll get to that a little bit later, Zyde. I want to talk a little bit about getting applying for a home loan. Let's start from the beginning and take us through the entire process. Thank you, Estie. Evening everybody. I think from applying for a home loan is really a big decision, especially for your first-time buyer. What you really need to consider and start preparation is understanding your budget. Understand can you afford a home loan? So you really need to look at what are your income, what are your expenses. Secondly, you need to have a good understanding of your credit history. So understand your credit bureau profile. You are eligible to retrieve a credit report annually from one of the credit bureaus like TransUnion or Experian. And then you need to also consider doing a pre-qualification. EPSA has a great tool that can help you with a pre-qualification to determine how much you can afford from qualifying for a bond. Thereafter, you need to then assess what are some of the attorney costs associated to the home buying process. There's bond registration costs, there's initiation fees, there's transfer attorney costs. And check if you have enough savings to pay for those costs. Also consider new expenses coming into your budget such as insurance that has to be, that you have to take up as part of the home buying process. Check levies. What are some of the levy expenses, depending on the property type you'll be buying? Rates and taxes. The ones of electricity costs to get that onto your name once you've purchased your home. And then of course moving costs. What would be your moving costs once you're ready and you're approved for a home loan? And thereafter you can then, once you've got a pre-qualification of what you can afford, you can then start shopping around, search on private property's website for their property that you're looking for and different suburbs as well. And I think it's so important because I'm sure to a lot of first time home buyers or even people who are just looking into buying property now, a lot of young people who've watched the first time home buyer show, probably all those terms and all those steps that you mentioned, they probably had no idea this existed. There were one or two that I was like, oh, I need to do that, you know? So I think it's very important and I love that you gave that almost in bullet form. And I think it's so pivotal for us as the younger generation to take notes of this and go and do further research on these terms. But today we're going to try and go deeper into this, which I really would like us to do. One of your first things was, check your budget. And we spoke about this just a little bit before and I think it's so important because you kind of preach that there are certain things that we can just exclude from our budget, certain lifestyle changes that we need to actually change. So how do we go about some advice from you? How do we go about actually working better with our budget, being financially savvy? I think guidance is always to look at your income and what are your expenses and assess expenses that are really required versus some luxuries and see where you can really minimize, you know? But I think taking time to assess your expenditure and spending time is very important. It's a very difficult task to do, but you have to do it. I think it's very important because you need to, in your budget, you need to ensure that you've got expenses allocated according to what's really necessary. There are some luxury items and then always make room for savings for that time when you might really need an emergency and you have that accessible. And I think part of buying a home is, you know, there would always be some kind of emergency, whether it's a repair of a home or some renovations or some unexpected costs. And you always need to make sure that you have room for all of that once you are homeowner as well. And I think really assessing your budget is actually very, very important. So I really encourage you to assess your budget and check the income and expenses as well. And look, if you're not getting ready to purchase the home right now, after you've assessed your budget, start looking at how can you downsize, decrease expenses so that you can work towards the goal of home ownership. And I think that's really, really important and encouraging from my side as guidance in terms of preparation towards home ownership. And you're right, it is scary to just, you know, to assess that budget and make these lifestyle changes because to some people, you know, it could be like a drastic change that we need to make or some people are just like, but I can't afford to make that change just yet. But I think it's important to assess the budget. I mean, I'm going to leave you and go do the exact same thing. Because it is now is the right time, even just before this, we were talking about how it's such a perfect time to buy right now, right? But I want to get to that later. Another one of the steps that you mentioned, Zida, was doing the whole pre-qualifying step first. How important is that step before the final? I think it's very important because I think having an understanding of what you could qualify for gives you the confidence to shop around. So, like I've mentioned, APSA has a great tool. It's available on our website. It's accessible on our website for everybody to use. It's called the APSA Home Loan Estimator tool. It's our pre-qualification tool. Easy steps to insert some of the fields required for you to determine what you could afford from a home, from a bond qualification perspective. It gives you an estimate and you are able to do that estimate up to five times within a 90 day period. And that can help you shop around and to see what you could qualify for. It helps you with your search process, you know, different suburbs, different price ranges. And then you can start searching confidently for properties and starting having the engagement process to view properties. And I think that really gives you good guidance as to what you can afford. And I encourage everybody to go and do a pre-qualification. As mentioned, ours is available on the APSA website. And we'll give you a certificate with what you could qualify for after you've inserted all your necessary information. And you can happily go and shop around for the property you're looking for. And you can start by searching on private properties website. And I think it's so important because once you have that figure, you know exactly what you're looking for. And that's when you can play around, especially as first time home buyers. Do you want to? You can even keep below that figure, you know? And if it's maybe your first home or family home, also again, what's so important, especially with first time home buyers, is the intention of buying, whether it's investment purposes or if it's your home home. You just spoke about that, you know, that's a good way digitally. And a lot of younger people are always on their phones, always, you know, going through all the apps and it's just easily accessible, you know, this thing, this phone. So how has APSA helped us, especially digitally, make this process so much easier for first time home buyers? Oh, great. I think, you know, with the world evolving digitally, transforming all industries has to really adapt to this digital world that we transform into and we've got to evolve. So APSA has great digital tools that can help you towards the buying process. It's our pre-buying tools. Once again, it's available on our APSA website and it's accessible to everybody. We have the pre-qualification tool, as mentioned, to help you shop confidently. We then have a great tool, which is an e-learning tool that teaches you about home ownership. All the ins and outs about home ownership. It's our APSA My Home Owner Journey tool. It's a free tool. You access the tool and you can actually learn about home ownership, the buying process, type of properties, type of lending facilities, insurance solutions, the attorney processes, the deeds office processes and the different type of properties that you can be interested in purchasing, as well as the buying process, such as what is an offer to purchase. You know, what are some of the next steps during the buying process? So it's a really great, great e-learning course that I encourage everybody to actually access, register on our website, go through the course. It's really, really, really great and helpful. And then the final exciting one is that in order to submit your home loan application, we've got an online digital sales process and you can actually log on, complete your home loan application in under 15 minutes. It's simplicity, it's speed and you can submit your application and get an outcome. You can do it with any device on your tablet, on your mobile, on your laptop. And I think that's the beauty part of where we are from a digital perspective. We've really made it very easy and convenient and simple to access. Also, we've got great calculators on our website also to help you calculate some of your bond attorney costs, especially after you've done the pre-qualification tool. It gives you an indication of what could some of those costs be and you can work around and play around with different price ranges so that you can determine what is your budget once again and what you can afford and what does that look like if you have to take into account rates in taxes, levies, insurance as well. We've got great insurance solutions too. So all these digital tools are available on our website to help first-time buyers prepare for their home ownership journey. We spoke about the e-learning tool and earlier, remember I said a lot of the jog and you used was, could be foreign to a lot of people, but having this option as the e-learning, it literally teaches you in depth all of these terms and terminologies that you might come across on your home ownership journey, which is so important. I love that we have that, you know, easy right here on your phone, online. And under 15 minutes, that's absolutely amazing. Yes. No, with the times, keeping up with the times, I love that. Especially, I think, Estie, we really try to transform digitally and we're really trying to make it convenient and reassuring the market that we have the right tools to help you on this important journey. You know, our pre-buying tools are there, it's accessible to everybody. You don't need to be an app's a customer to access the tools, learn and prepare for your journey. And we've made it so much easier where you can actually go and complete your own application and submit it and wait for it and get an outcome. It's as simple as that. From the comfort of your home on any device. Exactly. And I think that's really, really transforming this journey. And that's the journey we've invested in and we really wanna support first-time buyers in this regard to really reassure them that we are here. We wanna walk the journey with you as you take this important decision as buying a home. Exactly, I just wanted to say that even though, you know, we're in the midst of a pandemic and things are done virtually, you're still holding our hand. Not physically, but through the process, which I love. Zayda, talking about first-time home buyers, and I know even within my own circles, a lot of people, young adults, are buying property for the first time. These first-time home buyers are just the numbers are expanding and it's just an influx of all of them. And I love that for us. What are the current trends that you are seeing from your side with regards to first-time home buyers? How is there an influx? What's happening on your side? Wow, I think you rightfully mentioned, even though it's a pandemic, we've really seen increase in the property market from an activity perspective, which is really great. We have the lowest interest rate in years. It's 3% down since July, 2020. And I think that really makes it a very favorable environment to encourage consumers to consider home ownership. You know, some are probably renting and wants to move towards owning their own property. And I think that's really encouraging. Some are buying a home for the first time in their families, you know, for themselves, for the extended family. And that's really encouraging the environment's favorable. And also to add, I think transfer duties are exempted for properties less than a million grand. And I think that's a real saving for first-time buyers. And I think that's really encouraging for the market at this point in time. And we have really seen a good increase in activity from first-time buyers in the market. And it's really exciting. And I think, you know, it's really great that we can be the bank to support, you know, and to be a part of that home ownership in South Africa as a society and play that role. I think it's very important. And that's how we've created all these great tools to support South Africans on the journey of home ownership. I think it's important for our country. And we really encourage the market to really take that step, think about it. Now is the time. I think the environment's really favorable. And we encourage you to take the step towards home ownership. There's no better time than now. Absolutely. You've said it really well. I wanted to find out, so we obviously, you know, we've seen that a lot of new people are buying property right now, but are the other trends maybe from, especially with regards to first-time home buyers that you are seeing? So what we've also seen is that look, I think we've seen an increase in women playing a role in the market. We've seen a lot of activity from first-time buyers. Like I said, you want to own a property. You don't necessarily, you know, you're moving from renting to owning. The time is favorable. So we really seen that activity in the market at this point in time, which is encouraging. I think different suburbs, you know, sometimes you'd have thought that I could never afford a property in the suburb, but with the rates being relatively low, the lowest in years, I think, you know, sometimes you can actually afford a property in a different suburb where you actually thought that you couldn't, and I think that's really encouraging. And that's why I think that the market has really turned very favorably in the property industry, even if though it's a pandemic, but I think it's encouraging during this time, you know, for consumers, we really saw the Africans to consider home ownership. So those are some of the key things we've seen. And I think that it's exciting. I think it's exciting, you know, as young adults to take the step on the journey. And like I've mentioned earlier, is that, you know, for some, it's the first time purchasing a property in their families, you know, they've exited university, single moms wanting security for their kids. So it's really amazing to see some of these, these lifestyle changes, but in a positive light and making home ownership is really something big. And it's exciting and it's important as well. A little bit of everyone is, you know, you're seeing kind of trends along. Absolutely. I love that. Zaira, we spoke, I mean, we don't often get to speak to, you know, someone from APSA. And first time home buyers often have a lot of questions when it comes to getting money from the bank and being, and qualifying for this home loan. I wanted to know, like, maybe just a few, like, frequently asked questions that you've gotten from first time home buyers. And maybe if you can use this opportunity to answer them as well. So I think a lot of the times we get that, oh, I don't know where to start. And like I've mentioned, the starting point is, look at your budget. Understand your income, your expenses. Is there room for you to actually afford a bond repayment? Then go and look at, and look at, see what you can afford, you know. And once you have those two things, then you can start shopping around. But it's also important that to understand your credit history. Because if you have certain things that are not favorable, you can try to sort those out before you embark on the journey of home ownership. And you can also learn about the journey of home ownership. And that's why we've got our great tool that you can learn about this process. And I think other things that's important to consider as well is, you know, when you start searching for a property, there's certain things that you need to consider. So as you shop around, view properties in certain suburbs on a Sunday, have a look at volume of traffic, have a feel of how does that look in certain suburbs that you might be interested in. Then understand, you know, these suburbs, do they have good transport networks? Is there good amenities? Is there schools, shopping centers closed by? Hospitals? Also understand that look, some of us are working from home, so fiber connectivity is important. And I think also what's something else also is the security, you know, the suburb security. If you're buying in a sectional title property, understand the levy costs, what is associated to that. And then just overall the suburb, understand is it a suburb that's growing in value, property value? You can get property reports, you can access that from private property's website to help you understand, and have an understanding of some of the suburbs that you might be interested in. So those are some of the things that I can actually give guidance on as to consider as a first time buyer when you start searching for your property and as you prepare for this journey. My biggest question is the negotiation thing. You know, everyone says, no, you can negotiate. We can, now, how far can I take it? How far can I push this negotiation? I think as you engage with maybe estate agents or the actual, if it's a pre-owned property or a developer, you know, see what's the costing of price range, how far you can negotiate. I think it's a good adult conversation. And then you take it from there. I think, look, it's how you establish that rapport and what are you looking for. I think it's also important to understand what you're looking for. And that's why I say the preparation, there's a lot of preparation, understanding the suburb, the type of property you're interested in, what is important to you to have in the property, you know, fiber, security, you know. And those are key things to understand. And as you go on your search and you look for the, in different suburbs and different property types that you're looking for, whether it's sectional title, estate loving, goodbye, a freestanding property. And with freestanding property, you consider some of the other additional security considerations like an alarm system, electric fence, et cetera. And I think those are some of the things that you need to, you can, once you have a good understanding of what you're looking for, as you enter into, to engage with estate agents, you then can do the negotiation around costing and price ranges and what you could put in and offer for to, if you are interested in a property that you've seen, and then you can then go ahead and start doing the preparations around signing and offer to purchase with the respect of, either it's a pre owner or the estate agent or the developer. And then you wait for the outcome. Right. I like how you said it's an adult conversation. It's an adult conversation. You know, you need to put on your big old hat. The next question is, you know, I have so many questions on this. I feel like for the next question, this topic needs its own show and needs a whiteboard and it needs to be, literally, we need to dive deep into it. It's a flisp. And I have so many, you know, I've even searched and a few, gotten a few questions from friends and family members who have obviously done more research, you know. And one of the most important questions, before I even ask that question, maybe you can explain flisp. And why is the form so long? Why is the form? I think let's start with what flisp is. So the government really introduced flisp back in 2012, the Department of Human Settlements as a government housing subsidy to support home ownership and carry home ownership for first-time buyers. It's a subsidy for income earners that earns below 22,000 grand. Also, what's important is that you've got to be a first-time buyer and you must have not benefited from previous housing subsidies. You need to be over 18 and you need to have a home loan approval from a bank before you submit your flisp application. It is a separate application to that of your home loan application. So you really need to first get a home loan approval and thereafter, they need to gather your documents for the flisp submission of application. The form is long. The criteria really is for the first piece to assess your income, your expenses because it is a subsidy granted to you based on your salary income on a scale perspective as well. And the subsidy is really there to assist you either through a deposit or to help you reduce the outstanding balance on your home loan. And the vetting process is intense. So you've got to submit really key documents as part of the application process like your pay slips, your bank statements. If you have beneficiaries that you're taking care of and affidavit, your ID, your proof of your home loan application, I mean, you submit those and you can submit it to the National Housing Finance Corporation. You can visit their website. They've got great information about what the flisp is and they're really good at taking in applications and sharing the outcomes. And that's really flis when it's an encouraging tool to support, it's an encouraging tool. I call it a tool to support first-time buyers. And I really think that a lot of South Africans, we speak about it but it's something that's still very vague. A lot of people don't understand it. But at EPSO we really try to advocate and we really educate our consumers and our customers actually about what flisp is because I think it's important. I think it's a really, really nice tool that the government has introduced to support first-time store home ownership for first-time buyers. And you're right, a lot of people don't know about this and that's what's so shocking to me because I'm out there all the time and I'm like, guys, but there's flisp and they're like, huh? And I'm like, no, we can do this. As first-time buyers, we can do this. So the biggest question from a lot of the people in my circles is, is it something I have to pay back? Or what happens after that? So once the flist application is assessed and you receive an outcome, if the outcome is positive where the subsidy is granted to you based on what you've submitted, it then gets paid over towards your home loan, whether it's in form of a deposit or to reduce your outstanding balance. You never, you don't pay the government back for the money, but it's really to assist you with your home ownership journey. And that's actually what the flisp is for. So banks have partnered with the government to ensure that we really try and speak and do thought leadership about flisp to government subsidy. And we work with the Department of Human Settlements and government to support the advocacy of flisp and to encourage it for first-time buyers that qualify for the flisp subsidy as well. And they obviously do their own calculations to determine how much one is gonna qualify for. Absolutely, absolutely. And that's why I say it's a separate application. Banks cannot tell you what you can get. You submit your separate application, like I said, to the National Housing Finance Corporation. They will assess your application and they will share an outcome with you with what you've submitted to them. Right, okay, perfect. Thank you so much, Zyda. I think flisp is very important. Everyone watching the show, go try and do your own research on this and understand that, like Zyda, like you said, you are there to help us and you're encouraging people around, you know, whether they're doing the home loan through APSA, you're encouraging them to actually look at flisp. I know it is a hefty form. That is what I opened with. It is quite a hefty form. But take the time and fill it out. And like you said, it's a lot of personal documents that's needed. And I think the biggest thing about first-time home buyers is that beginning process, that start. It's all the documents, it's all of this, all this information needed. As soon as that's over, it's, I'm not gonna say smooth sailing because I don't wanna sell dreams, but it's almost easier. The first process is really just a lot of documentation and filling out all of these things. I mean, you know, we just heard a story about someone who's still trying. It's been two weeks. They're still filling out the documents. So I think just take that step and fill out those documents. Do your research. Zyda, just before we close off, again, still let's focus on the first-time home buyers. APSA obviously offers numerous things. So let's talk a little bit about the offerings that you offer to first-time home buyers. Great, so AC, we've got great, we have got great solutions for first-time buyers. We've got, for our digital, we've got a great, exciting digital solution for our first-time buyers where you can submit your application online. And you could be eligible, you could qualify for a UPS subject to your home loan being approved. And this offer is exciting. It ends on the 31st of January, 2022. So that's quite exciting. And then we've got our my home proposition where we, for income earners below 26,000 RAN, soon as 6,100, we offer them a 50% discount on attorney costs. You're eligible to all our insurance solutions. We can also do a financial assessment for you through our financial consultants that can assist you with understanding your financial status as well as giving you guidance around how to financially get fit from a needs analysis perspective. We then also, you're also eligible to get a free home ownership training course which you go through to teach you more ins and outs of home ownership. And then we've got a young professionals solution for our young professionals out there. You can get a loan to value of up to 105%. You could use the additional 5% for your cost that you might need to pay for properties under 1.5 million. You get a 30% bondage discount there. We also give you access to all our insurance solutions that is accompanied with buying a house. You need home owner structure insurance. You need content cover to cover your content in your home. And then of course, we really encourage the market to always take up a life insurance that's seeded to your home loan so that in case of anything that might happen in case in event of death or terminal illness or disability, the outstanding home loan balance can be settled subject to that the life insurance value is covered for the entire home loan value as well. And I think that's very important. We also can draft rules so that you can leave your asset to a beneficiary as well. And I think we've got access to all your other great solutions such as great transactional accounts, check accounts as well. And you can get additional apps and rewards as well for being a home owner. And we've got a, we're a full bank. We offer full solutions and we've got everything there that can support you on your home buying journey, on your looking for insurance solution, looking for estate and walls, financial planning. And I think that's really important where you can get everything in one place as you embark on the important journey of home ownership as well. So we've got all these great solutions to support first-time buyers. Exactly, and with everything that you've said, you're supporting first-time home buyers before the process, during the process, and after. After the process, absolutely. I love that. You spoke about a lot of different types of insurances that one needs. Especially for first-time home buyers, if we could use a few moments just to educate those watching at home about the different types of insurances. Is that the word insurances? That customers need when, yeah. Purchasing their home. So I think when you purchase in your home, firstly, you have content that's in your home, like your appliances, and you'd want to insure those. So we have home content insurance cover that we can offer you. We have the home owners comprehensive cover, which is your structure insurance associated to your home, which is important to take up, which is accompanying the purchasing of your home. And then there is life insurance, which needs to be ceded to the home loan. So that in case of death or disability or terminal illness, the bond can be paid up, the outstanding balance can be settled. But that is subject to that the life insurance that you've taken out and ceded to absent home loans does cover the full outstanding home loan balance. So that your beneficiaries are not left with a surprise. They are then covered in that event. And like I say, drafting a wall is very important as well. You'd want to leave your asset to a beneficiary. And I think we've got all these solutions to support you as you embark on home ownership. Yes. Thank you so much, Sairda. If you can just let us know as we end off, how easy is it to apply for a home loan at EPSA? Well, let's visit our website and our home loans page to access all our digital tools, our pre-buying tools, and submit your home loan application online. Access our digital sales application tool, complete your application and submit it in under 15 minutes and you can get a home loan outcome. I think our app, our home loans website has all our tools available. It's accessible to everybody. And I encourage you to make use of our pre-buying digital tools as well as do the pre-qualification, learn, take our e-learning course and submit your home loan application online and get an outcome. And that is everything available to you. And that's how you can get hold of us at EPSA home loans. And it really is that simple. Before we close off, Sairda, I'm going to ask you very nicely to take off your EPSA hat quickly. Okay. Just for two seconds. Just please take off your EPSA hat. My question is, I'd love for you as Sairda manual to give first time home buyers advice who are doing it for the first time. It's a daunting experience and they are so afraid. Some advice from you, please, Sairda. The biggest, the guidance I'll give is that please assess your budget. Understand your income, your expenses. Secondly, understand your credit profile. Understand your status and retrieve a free credit report from the bureau, such as Experian and TransUnion. You are eligible for one annually. And understand your credit history. And I think those two together is important to understand. Can you actually afford a home loan or not? And I think that's the starting process. And then make use of the tools that we have available on our EPSA website to help you prepare. Sairda, you just went and put the EPSA hat back on. Thank you so much, Sairda, for taking the time out and sitting with us and explaining how simple and easy EPSA has made this home ownership journey process. Thank you so much. To everyone at home, don't forget, we still want to hear your story. If you have a first time home ownership story to share with us, what it was like going through the process, send us a message on Instagram or Facebook, and we'll be in touch. Take care, stay safe. See you guys again next weekend, live at 8 p.m. Take care.