 And gentlemen, my name is Hetty the Entrepreneur and a very warm welcome to the Private Property Podcast. I am super, super excited to be here with you this evening. If you are as excited as I am to have you as the guest host for this evening's Private Property Podcast, give me some green heart emojis within the coming section. Let me know your name and let me know where you're joining us from this evening. I'm super, super excited to all of our returning fans of very, very warm welcome to you to the Private Property Podcast. This is a space and an environment where we talk all things property with experts, investors and pioneers within the industry. So I invite all of you this evening to also watch all of our other shows within the Private Property community. We've got the Home Shoppers show with Chad that is every single Monday to Friday at 8pm. We've also got the first time home buyers show with Estie Carson. I absolutely love Estie and her warm energy. She's on every single Wednesday at 8pm. And then we've got the Farming Podcast with Mbali Morku Tuesdays and Thursdays also at 8pm. Do let me know your name and where you are joining from this evening. I'm super, super excited. I see Mohalis just joined us. We've got Noni that's come in. We've got Chanel that's come in. A very, very warm welcome to you this evening. Now, we cannot start with our proceedings without thanking you our absolutely wonderful community for getting us to one million followers. Oh my goodness. That is absolutely fantastic. Who would have thought that in just a short space of time we would have grown our community to such a large number. We couldn't have reached this milestone without you. So give yourself a nice pat on the shoulder. Thank you so much for being part of our community. Now, as you know, we are running a fantastic campaign which is hashtag one in a million reasons you love private property. So we would love to hear from you. What is your one in a million reason that you love private property? Head over to our story that has been pinned on our Facebook page and please feel free to share with us your hashtag one in a million reason. We really do look forward to hearing from you. Now, this evening I am absolutely not alone. I actually have a wonderful guest with me and we are going to be talking about the state of commercial property. We've got Nobengoni Bohoba, who is the COO of Brawl Property Management. And this evening I am going to fondly be referring to her as Nguli. We are going to have a really fantastic and robust conversation this evening. Good evening Nguli. How are you this evening? Well, thank you, Heti. And thank you so much to the private property group for having me. Thank you. I am so excited for the conversation that we're going to be having. I think commercial property is such an interesting topic to really be delving into particularly during this economic climate. But you know, when we talk about property, there are so many different industries. So there's commercial, there is residential, you've got your warehousing and industrial, etc. For an individual that is not familiar with commercial property, can you give us a very high level overview of what does commercial property actually mean? Commercial property, Heti, covers quite a lot of segments. So it covers offices as you've so rightfully indicated. It covers industrial properties. That's your warehousing, your logistics hubs. It also covers a lot of new kind of assets that we are seeing now, data hubs and telcos infrastructure. And then it also covers retail in the form of shopping centers and malls. But also when we speak of commercial, we can speak of residential because once you have a residential portfolio where it's now falling under a listed fund or a fund and it's a big portfolio, you start treating it more as a commercial transaction. So it talks about all things property to be honest. So even when we talk about specialized properties like you have state-owned entities that have specific use of specific types of property, we refer to all of that as commercial. Wow, that is such a fantastic definition. Thank you for breaking it down so easily for us. This evening, we've got individuals that are joining us from all over the country. I see we've got Glad Sherinda from Pretoria East. We've got Anelda from Everton in Port Elizabeth. A very, very warm welcome to everybody that's joining us this evening. So as we look at commercial property in Guli, can you give us a little bit of a sense of the current trends within the commercial property market at the moment, particularly considering the pandemic as well as the interest rates? So it's been a whirlwind of a time in commercial real estate. I think the pandemic came at a time when already some of the segments of commercial property were suffering such as the office segment where we were sitting with huge vacancies and specific nodes and we were trying to fill those and we were sitting at like 25% vacancies and it was very, very difficult to fill and that was purely a makeup of the economy and many factors where businesses were just not coming up at the rate that the properties were coming up. Then the retail segment was doing really well up until we saw the lockdowns coming through and the absolute shutdown that we saw when the pandemic started last year and that just threw us a curveball that was unexpected. So that was a definite, what can I call it, a disruption and in more recent times we saw the recent riots over the past month and that has certainly thrown us another curveball. So we haven't been without much testing in our sector but I must say that I've been very pleased at how we've seen some of the segments performing really well. So if I take you through to retail for instance, we had obviously the retail segment, even though right now it was the hardest hit with the riots, it had actually been that segment that remained most resilient over the past year with the pandemic and COVID. So especially the township and the rural retail, it was always the most resilient and then it got hard hit but I can assure you that we are already seeing our investor landscape and the landlords in a rebuild mode and a very quick optimism that is building up in terms of making sure that we are up and running all over again. Wow, it really is quite comforting to hear that we are in a rebuild mode especially given the hard impact that the pandemic has had on us. A very warm welcome to you Irene joining us from Pulekwane. I see we've got Paulina from Empumalanga, very, very warm welcome to all of you within the coming section. Let us know your views on commercial properties within the coming section so that we can continue to engage with you. Now, Onguolo, given the fact that we are on an upward rise and given the fact that we are looking to rebuild, would you say that now is a good time to buy commercial real estate? I really do believe in every chaos, the chaotic situation lies in opportunity because interest rates are the way they are which is quite low than what we've seen in any other time in our country. I think that it presents a good opportunity that's number one but number two, there are plenty of properties that are available out there and so it creates a buyer's market and I would therefore on that basis encourage that if there are new entrance this is probably the best time to come in. However, I must caution that obviously with the huge impact of these two disruptions on the real estate sector, banks are also taking a little bit longer with their decision making and the investors themselves are a little bit apprehensive with not being sure what to expect but this is where I always take the opportunity to remind all of us that real estate is responsible for 70% of the world's wealth and we can't take that away. I think it's always going to remain strong and we will come out of this stronger at some given point in time. While that really is quite encouraging and I think that definitely we have to remain optimistic when it comes to growing our economy and using real estate as a vehicle to do so. If you were to advise kind of individuals looking to invest in commercial properties post a pandemic environment what are some of the things that a person should be looking out for? So it depends if you're an individual investor or if you are a fund so let me maybe for this moment in time focus on an individual. So you need to and as an individual I suppose maybe you are looking at a residential portfolio or looking at a residential property it's important that you are well informed in your decision making be well informed about the location. You need to make sure I think location location location still stands for me where you want to know that your asset will continue to appreciate in value and you look at the surrounds and you look at the amenities around you and make sure that there is greater value rather than just the individual house that you are buying into because you are buying into everything else that is around that area so I think that is something to be taken into consideration make sure that you are aware of all the financial obligations that will go with concluding a sale and make sure that you are communicating with your banks to give you the best possible interest rate that you can get and I think that once you have done that and I often say to people I've had a lot of friends who come and they want to have an investment property but they don't have a primary residence and I often say start with the primary residence and then you build from that point on you know because we are in a precarious time where tenants have got a lot of protection around them and a lot of landlords and investors have seen yeah they've seen a lot of drama for lack of a better word with tenants not being able to pay their rentals on time or pay their rentals at all so if you are going to delve into a rental in investment property make sure that your tenants are vetted properly you do a proper and thorough due diligence and you are you know that you are dealing with ethical people it's always very difficult to foolproof everything but make sure that you've done your homework at the very least and enter into a contractual agreement with someone don't just enter into a word of mouth arrangement and then you find yourself wanting at the end of the day. Absolutely and this actually raises such an important question because you know given the current environment that we're operating in with individuals that are you know leasing out premises within you know the commercial real estate space perhaps individuals that have been a hard hit are there certain legal recourse that landlords have in order to take actions when their tenants do default within this particular economy? Yeah certainly in a commercial space there's all kinds of recourse that the landlords have I think landlords uh uh yeah I won't say it but most of our tenants who have been on that side of the law would rather not have to go through that but I think from a commercial point of view we've got it pretty much like a well-oiled machine and things are acted upon as soon as there is a default we are able to deal with it and make sure and I would advise my advice to tenants is sometimes just walk away before you are so deep in you know I think tenants also just stay and elongate their time obviously you have lease obligations so be open be honest and communicate upfront with your landlord because often we are aware of your 10 over and when things change with your 10 over we are most likely the first people to see in any case you know so I have found that since the pandemic started there has been almost a different relationship that the landlords have established with their tenants they really are trying their best to make sure that they keep the tenants on and keep them supported as much as possible you know so they've gone and done a lot of rent revisions discounting all kinds of things and just deferment of rental just to help the tenants to survive because they are cognizant of the economic climate that we are in and how the hardships of the pandemic have just hit everybody so hard and also landlords also don't want to sit with empty pockets of space you know so they really do want to see all businesses thrive and when we lose tenants it also is an indicator that the economy is not going in the direction that we want with every tenant you lose their jobs lost so there are so many aspects that one does get to be concerned with I must tell you something positive around the recent riots where the landlords have said you know we will rebuild and as far as possible we will help even the uninsured SMMEs who are in our different buildings and cannot rebuild and come back and when government came and presented all of their relief packages we are finding that a lot of the landlords are going ahead forging ahead and talking and engaging with those government agencies for funding purposes just to make it as seamless as possible and as easy and less cumbersome for the tenants and more so the smaller ones which are the SMMEs where we know that is the bulk of the you know employment that we so desperately need in the country absolutely I think it's just so important to have that open communication policy try to foster a win-win situation between tenants and landlords and to keep honest communication that is also transparent as well if you own a commercial property or you are a tenant within a commercial property let us know your experience within the coming section over the past 17 months has your environment changed at all let's share within the coming section I see Colleen Jansson has used hashtag one in a million reasons and she says my one in a million reason why I love private property is because of the informative podcast that is broadcasted every day that I learned so much from the properties that are being advertised for rent or sale competitions on the website it's an absolute wonderful host that makes every podcast interesting way to go thank you so much Colleen Jansson we really do appreciate the love that you are giving us and speaking of the competition it's that time of the night again where we get to actually find out if you are a winner of our daily 500 rand cash giveaway now interestingly enough this 500 rand has been rolling over this entire week so you actually stand a chance of winning 2000 rand how amazing is that so let's take a look at our random selector I can't wait to find out who our lucky winner is let's roll our random selector all right I see that our winner is Lisa Marie Cluthe congratulations Lisa Marie you have up until the end of the show to claim your prize by simply commenting in the comment section congratulations to you Lisa Marie Cluthe you have until the end of the show to claim your prize by simply commenting within the comment section what a fantastic evening that we're having I'm so excited 2000 rand not bad at all now Nguli let's kind of look at a little bit deeper into the retail and what we think is going to be happening within retail real estate in the near future I see a lot of businesses are also taking their businesses online do you think that this is going to have an impact on the amount of retail real estate that continues to be leased out I think that a lot of the investors have actually gone and done a lot of research on this and what you will remember is that we had a total shutdown last year when the pandemic started and what we saw was the retailers were desperately looking to trade again and that obviously taught us that most of our retailers were not yet ready you know with their online platforms and they were just you know probably planning to roll it out and it was going to happen at some point but essentially what the pandemic did is it catapulted them to make sure that they put those plans in place I always say that an online presence and an offline which is the bricks and mortar presence is a sustainable is necessary to have both online and offline for a sustainable lifeline of any business and I think that you know our retailers need a healthy proportion of both rather than one without the other a recent study that was done in Europe showed that actually in the areas Portugal and Spain that's where the study was done a lot of the shoppers are still preferring to shop offline rather than online so there is definitely a future for offline shopping but it's always better to be on the safe side and do both online and offline shopping and I know exactly how I could be spending 2000 rents tonight absolutely Lisa Marie you better claim your mula because Ngooli and I are coming for it I am seriously excited for you I see Nocipo says I love private property because of the efficient services the website is easy to use and build valuable information social media team is the cherry on top always keeping us updated informed and excited private property is the absolute best Nocipo we're so happy that you enjoy our website privateproperty.co.ca we always make sure that we bring you the absolute very best now Ngooli with interest rates being quite low at the moment risk is not what do you think the state of the lending markets are going to be are you finding that banks are a little bit more risk averse during this time and funding institutions as well or what are you what are you what is your perception of the lending market at the moment I find that it differs from one segment to another I think that what we are you know if you are an individual this is a good time we saw recent results coming out indicating that a lot of lending has happened over the past year to females buying a lot of houses you know so I think that that is a positive but on the commercial side where people are buying big portfolios we are finding that the loan to value has decreased quite a lot and banks are expecting a lot more equity and they just want to balance out their risk so it's it's a mixed bag it's not the same across a cross board there's a definite need now from from big buyers to put down a bigger equity portion than what would have been ordinarily expected yeah well that is very interesting indeed and I see Kushida saying I love the family vibe when we interact on live shows together but there's so very valuable information and education private property rocks number one in my books hashtag one in a million reasons if you have a one in a million reasons that you love private property make sure that you share it with us by simply commenting under the post that has been pinned on our facebook page we would love to hear from you and also to help us achieve our goal of reaching 10 000 comments under that particular post and if you do so you stand a chance of your coming to also being read out on our private property podcast every single evening so before we begin to wind down the evening guli I would really like to hear from you what you think the kind of state of commercial real estate is going to be like in terms of recovery do you think that we're going to be slowly but surely moving on an upward trajectory or do you think that things are going to really flag line for a while before a full recovery comes into play different response for the different segments of real estate I think in the retail segment which has most recent casualties there's a very quick turnaround and a quick rebuild that obviously all of us would have seen if you were exposed to any of the centers that were you know looted or vandalized or destroyed you will see that a portion of the center even if not all of it is up and running is already up and running you know so wherever possible those retail centers are coming up again I've also had a good sentiment from one of the investors on the retail side saying they are still looking to to develop more in the rural areas and develop more in the township areas because there is grant funding that is also made available by government which allows them to do the bulk infrastructure and that really helps because it takes away you having to take out big capital for bulk infrastructure all you have to worry about is the top structure and so a lot of air of optimism going on in that way and even in light of the riots you know it's also given some of the investors an opportunity to revamp some of these malls and take a good a different look at them you know so that has been so it's a mixed bag but overall optimism on the retail side I must say I must stress that we remain worried and concerned about the office segment especially with the pandemic which was always a problem anyway before the pandemic the pandemic came and now all kinds of restrictions with social distancing coming through and now we've got the vaccination and a lot of anti-vaxxers who are saying I don't want to be vaccinated so we are looking very carefully to see what government is going to do around that whole labor aspect of whether people come back to work even if they're not vaccinated and how do we deal with it as employers so I do think we'll still see a flat line in the office segment for some time while companies are coming up with all their policies of what to do and how to deal with coming back into the offices and of course a lot of companies adopting hybrid ways of working as for the industrial segment a lot of activity is going on there a lot of inviting investors that are looking to acquire as much as possible so that is a hive of opportunity that is going on there and it's something exciting to look forward to by the way I did forget to wish you a happy women's month I hope it's been good for you and everybody else that's watching absolutely it's been a fantastic women's month and it's almost as though you read my mind before we actually wind down in Guli as the CEO of brawl property management a woman that is holding such a high leadership level and an individual that is a mover and shaker within the property industry given the fact that it is women's month what would your final parting words be for women that are looking to enter into the property industry what words of encouragement would you have with them what words of advice would you have I think I'll go back to what I said when I was asked by the property sector charter council to give my comments and a message to women and what I said was show up and be in it to win it you know we all understand that the commercial real estate sector is primarily male dominated but we need to show up in the industry as women come in and when we are in it we need to make sure that we are in it for the long haul you know it's not an easy quick win game this this game of property it's a long term game and it requires a lot of endurance and resilience so we need more of myself at this table you need to be at the table otherwise you're on the menu as they say but I also think while you are in the industry it will throw its curveballs various curveballs at you you just need to be able to set your boundaries and be kind to yourself I think very often we don't take that time to just step back and listen to where God has put us for lack of a better way to put it you know so pace yourself but I think if you come in with the attitude of being in it to win it then it's very easy to walk away at the first you know site of difficulty or something that looks like a stumbling block so that's been my attitude and that is what has kept me two decades long in this industry and hopefully still going strong two decades long wow that is no small feat absolutely inspirational and such fantastic words to end off our show with show up and show up fully be kind to yourself and make sure that you make an absolute impact thank you very much and gully coo of broad property management for joining us this evening and on that note that brings us to the end of our show I have had such a wonderful time this evening it has been absolutely fantastic thank you so much for having me as your guest host my name is Hetty the entrepreneur and thank you for joining us for the live private property podcast that happens every single evening thank you so much and enjoy your evening