 welcome to another episode of The Development Show. My name is Chad and I'll be your host. And if you haven't tuned in before, this is a show where we talk about the latest developments, how you can invest in them. And today we are going to be discussing a new development down in Cape Town called Stonewood Village Homes. And this is within the Stonewood Estate. Today I'm joined by Rowan Alexander, who is the founding member and director of Alexander SWOT Property Group. Rowan, how are you doing today? Good Chad, nice to have you guys here. Nice to be chatting to you, Rowan. What I'm going to do is I'm going to launch into a question I'd like to ask all the people who join us on this show. And that is, can you tell us a bit about yourself? Tell us about Alexander SWOT Property Group and also tell us what a customer can expect if they decide to go through this journey with you. Well, Chad, thanks. Alexander SWOT Property Group, we've been around for about three years as a brand, right? So that we were part of a national corporate brand for a number of years. We've evolved into our own brand and our own space. And we do second hand sales as well as new developments. New developments is one of our core focuses to give you an idea to date. We've sold, I think, about 23 different residential developments in excess of 1,200 properties on a development side with a total value of close to 1.5 billion rand. So development cells are something that we are very strong in and it's something that we pride ourselves in. So having different developments at different points in time, we usually cover quite a broad spectrum as to the markets, as to what people are looking for. And we are predominantly based in the northern suburbs of Cape Town. That's our stomping ground. That's where we like to find ourselves. I love speaking to people who are real development specialists. You've been doing this for such a long time and I think a lot of people tuning in as well. I'm also quite keen to get insights of people who have been specialising in developments for such a long time and selling them because really you've got all the knowledge around it. And today we're speaking about Stonewood Village Estate. So tell us a bit about that one. Okay, so Stonewood Village Rounds within the Stonewood estates. Awesome product of us, the developers are Trinity projects, builders are brick and board, and that's his agency, Alexander Swart. We've got a very strong team on the project. We launched about a year ago and we have 106 homes, all townhouses, single stories. Everything is three bedrooms, two bathrooms, double garages and it's within a security estate. So in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, there's a lot of sectional types of developments happening at the moment and quite a bit of duplexes as well. So with a product like Stonewood, the Village Homes, where everything is on a single level at around the two million grand prize slot, there's not a lot of competition for the development. So we've seen that in our rates of sell. I think we currently on our phase five, which would take us to about 90 out of the 106 homes. So in a space of about 11 months, considering that we've been through COVID and the lockdown and all of that, I think it's a phenomenal task that shows that the development is very well suited to the market. So three bedrooms, double garage, two bathrooms within a security estate, all on a single level. That's sort of the basis of the development. When it comes to construction of these developments, is there something that people should know or are all these developments almost the same? So if I was going to purchase into a development, are there other questions that you would say, hey Chad, listen, you should actually ask these questions around who constructed it, how they constructed it, who the construction companies were or in South Africa, are all the developments almost the same? No, I think that's one of the things where the market needs education is that there are brands and developments to follow. I mean, we all know and understand that if you buy clothing or you buy a vehicle or you buy something else, they're certain brands, which reflect certain values. And it's the same in the development space. There's almost this perception that if I buy a house, if I buy a new house, it's supposed to be the best construction, the best finishing, the best workmanship, irrespective of what price I pay or who I buy from. Whereas in reality, as there is with every other product in life, property is exactly the same. So one needs to be very mindful of who the developer is, who the builder is. It's obviously difficult if you're only going through this process once or twice in your lifetime, but there are certain things that you can look out for. I always recommend to clients, irrespective of who the developer is, there are a number of ways that you can check the credibility and whether it is a project where you should be investing. I think the first thing that you can try and look at is the developer's fast record. So with a lot of new developers coming up, especially in times like these where the lock is by point in the development space, you'll often find that new developers enter the lock. And so it's difficult to find a track record. It's difficult to establish whether the work that they do is of good quality or not. So be weary when it is someone new. I'm not saying that new entrants into the market can't provide quality products, but looking at someone's track record, looking at the sort of value that they leave on the table, all those developments that they've done, all those clients happy, have they received good capital growth? How do those projects look like a number of years down the line? Were they actually completed? One of the things that we see quite often in development spaces that the product is sold with a certain value add, you know, there's going to be certain infrastructure put in and upgrades done and turbos as bolts and stuff like that. The very first purchaser pays and contributes towards that, but they wait five to 10 years for that to actually happen. So another way for you to actually gauge whether you're working with a strong and a good reputable developer is someone who will actually add that value up front. So they'll complete the guardhouse and the open spaces and the clubhouse and all the communal facilities up front. So the very first person who moves in actually has access to everything that he's paid for. Okay, so that's another way to check. And then lastly, I think, or another two ways, I think one of the ways that you can do is you can look at the documentation. We find that that good developers often have very good documentation. It's very comprehensive, will be complete. You'll have all your plans or your specifications or your guarantees and stuff up front that won't leave you guessing as to the position that you're in. And then lastly, I think one of the best tips that I could give is go and drive around on site and have a look at site. It's actually scary how much information you could gather on site. That a site that is well maintained, you know, cleaned up every day is presentable and under control often relates to or almost always relates to a good quality product. A construction site that is sort of haphazard and material working or lying around and the site is dirty. That's very often an indicator of a substandard quality product. Then ultimately, if you don't have the time or the energy to go through that process, you need to try and hook up with an agent in an area that is known to new development cells and just bounce that off them and get their inputs. Even if I'd like to believe that if that agent is helpful in serving the market that he would give that input irrespective of whether it's his product or not. Well, you've definitely opened my eyes up in terms of some of the things to keep to keep out to keep a lookout for. I mean, even doing these development podcasts for as long as I have, there's definitely been takeaways that you've mentioned there that I had no idea about. So it's incredible how important it is to do your due diligence when trying to invest or trying to purchase within a development or just purchasing a home because it's such a massive purchase for you. And it's nice to know that these agents out there such as yourselves that are more than happy to run through these things with clients and to take them through the key points and to impart that knowledge. So thank you so much for that, Rowan. Cool. One thing that I could also maybe add is in that documentation that we spoke about in the development space, while we're on that, a lot of people have seen boards go up and developments planned and then they're never materialized or they never go ahead. I think one of the things that people miss out on is if they look at their sales documentation, it's always important to look at what conditions the developer has placed and what provisions he has made for himself with regards to the number of presales he requires before he actually commits to the project, which applications he needs to have approved before he goes to go on because often things would be launched without necessary approvals or presales in place, which results in someone potentially selling their house or potentially making financial decisions based on a project which does not get 100% committed into proceeding. So that documentation that we spoke about important to always go through that properly. And that documentation, would you then be able to take that to the agent and talk to that agent about that documentation where they can point out things that you should possibly watch out for or things that need to clarification on? Yes, 100% that's the agent's role in the transaction is to actually interpret that documentation and let you as a customer understand exactly what you're getting yourself into. So that is the agent's role is to meet the needs of the seller as well as the or take the needs of the seller and purchase and align them in a way in which they both understand to what they are committing. So definitely any reputable agent would give off you that advice. Perfect. Now talking about Stonewood Village Homes, can you talk to me about where they are based, where this development is based and also why did you guys choose that location? Okay, so based in the northern suburbs of Cape Town, the northern suburbs periphery of the northern suburbs has always been a hot spot for developments in Cape Town. So coming from a big development that we did in Wrappenfold, which is now in the last 10 years, grown tremendously, land became scarce, opportunities became scarce. So a lot of developers started looking northwards towards Durbanville, which is a very prominent town. There's been some big news in Durbanville with the first Kiro University being established in town, known as the Stadio Multiversity. So that will be the first Kiro private university in South Africa. So a lot of focus moves towards that side of town. Likewise, so did ours and developers that we deal with. So one of the developers that we deal with, as we've mentioned, Trinity Projects who are doing Stonewood Village Homes, they are very forward thinking in that way. So they found land which had development rights, but was underutilized and they believed that the market could actually maintain a better product than what was in that area. So land was scarce, opportunities were scarce, but the right product came around at the right time and they saw the opportunity to take that, reinvent it and actually provide a product which is suited to the market. So it came about out of an investigation and looking for land out that way, but it came around at the right time to provide a product which no one else had in the market. So a year ago there was no competition in that segment of the market. So that was one of the driving factors to actually proceed with that development because between the developer and ourselves as agents, there was a lot of discussions as to where the market's heading, what we project would be the next sort of popular trend out this way and Stonewood Village Homes suited that need 100%. So that's how it came about. Our site is about two kilometers from where the new university is going to be. So it is where one wants to be and from a developer seller side as well as a purchasing side, it's in a location which is great for capital growth in the future. Well, Stonewood Village Homes, let's take a quick break so that everybody can get a good idea of what you are offering and how it looks and when we come back we'll start speaking about pricing, the amenities and a little bit more features around it. So we will see you back right after this break. Back to the developer show. Today I'm joined by Rowan Alexander who is showcasing their latest development called Stonewood Village Homes. Rowan is the founding member and principal director of the Alexander SWAT Property Group. Rowan, thank you so much again for taking some time to join us. Before we took that break you were giving us some really good advice but now we're going to come back and talk about this development that you're showcasing. You've given us a rundown of the development, you've given us a rundown of where it is and why you've chosen that location. Can you now give us a rundown of the pricing surrounding the different units in the development and what units and unit types have you got to offer? Okay, great. So we've essentially got four different plans. Two being plans with firearms and two being plans with our firearms. So being northern suburbs of Cape Town everyone wants a bribe and so we needed to make provision for that. So we've got two plans, an A and a B plan starting off at 130 square meters and it would go up to 158 square meters. The 130 square meter house is our A plan. The pricing starts at $1,913,000 for 130 square meters and then our biggest plan in the development is 158 square meters and that cost would be $2,148,000. So that spread is about $1.9 to $2.15,000. The four different plans make provisions for different sizing and different budgets within the development but I think that that spring term is very close and so it's going to depend upon client's needs as well as their budgets as to which plan they end up going for. Our bigger product has been our most successful seller. Our D plan has been the most popular plan within their state and I think it's you know just simply due to the value for money that it offers. So we also need to be mindful and respectful that not everyone can afford the D plan so we have to keep a spectrum of options available. All the houses are three bedrooms, double garage and two bathrooms and I think we'll probably end up chatting now a little bit more about what those homes offer but I think that gives you a good idea of pricing. So size-wise 130 to 150 square meters for the homes and all the urban are roughly about 300 square meters. Ben, when are you planning to complete phase one? Our phase one is sold up. So phase one to four is actually sold up. So phase five is currently you know being sold. Maybe I'm understanding your question immediately whether you're asking for my sales or construction point of view but construction phase one plans are moving in as we speak. So the first plans moved in about two weeks ago and there's about 20 I think there's about 22 homes that need to be handed over within the next month which mostly form part of phase one and phase two. So we follow a methodology whereby every every transaction runs its own natural course. So you know once the bond is approved we start with the building plan submissions as well as the transfer process for the land. So the land will be transferred into the client's land after three months and then construction which starts after that. So the homes that are now being completed in phase one are plans who had already signed up a year ago. You know due to COVID obviously that that time period was extended. Neighbors are moving in now and subsequent phases will follow. You definitely answered that question because I did want to lead into this where you'd mentioned we were going to talk around the homes themselves and the reason I asked about the phases is what kind of customization is there within the home? So if I decide to purchase within phase five what can I change or what can I discuss with you to change what do you offer and then let's move directly into what do those homes offer as it is. Okay so I'll try and combine that. The homes as we've said really I mean I've said it a number of times three bedrooms double garage two bathrooms all of them and the specifications and the finishes are of a very good quality. So you won't necessarily you know we find that most clients aren't necessarily interested in changing specification but rather choosing within the ranges that we have. So to give you an idea of the type of finishing that you can expect there's porcelain tiles throughout all the living areas you know there's carpets in the bedrooms we've got nice shadow line furnaces right throughout the house. All the plumbing work is lunch grower taps we've got solar geysers we've got defy slope of an extracted combination but granite tops within the the kitchens. All of the exterior doors are aluminium so you've got no woodwork to maintain. Our garage doors are all electrified and a sectional overhead aliasing garage doors and there's been a whole lot of design features which have been incorporated into the homes just to make them more livable and I think that's things that people often overlook you know for instance the sliding door has windows next to the sliding door and might sound like an actually silly thing to be to to be mentioning but you won't you know the difference that that makes to actually living in the home to have a side light to open for natural ventilation rather than having to open the sliding door is massive and there's so many developments where there's actually just the sliding door without the side light and it really sounds silly to have to mention something like that but that's the small things that you know that are incorporated into design which you don't necessarily pick up up front and we've raised the floor to ceiling heights throughout all the homes to create more volume so we up to about three meters floor to ceiling heights in the bigger plans which really gives you a nice sense of space within the homes in terms of what you could then choose and and customize we go through a process with every client looking at their needs and what they would prioritize but they essentially have the opportunity to choose the floor coverings the cupboards within the house the different colors of the tops you know those would be the standard items which you would choose from you know within certain ranges and then also we afford clients the opportunity to make changes if they want to add a door into the main bedroom which leads out onto the garden we can do things like that you know we can do certain customization you know we can't entertain the client designing his own whole new home within the estate because there are design guidelines and there's also a reason why we can offer this product at this price you know because there isn't a level of standardization but we can make it your own we can make it unique you know as to the way that you would want as a owner occupy you know you want to make it your own and we understand that and and we do allow that but the way the way you've offered this is in my opinion one of my favorite ways to offer development whereas you give them different options you give potential clients different options within a certain framework so also it's not mind boggling the amount of stuff that you can change and you don't need to worry about possibly not changing something you feel like you want to change down the line because you've already thought of it when you mentioned the windows next to the sliding doors i understand exactly what you're talking about because i've come from a house that just had the sliding door into a house that now has windows next to the sliding door and it's one of those things you don't notice until you've got it you can have that security of having your sliding door locked with your windows open and having that ventilation it's really nice to see that the developers thought of these little quality of life offerings and that's great to see yeah then maybe just to touch on sort of the answer you know we've spoken about the inside of the properties on the outside what we do and you know we cover the entire earth with grass and as well as you know paving at the patios driveways and walkways into the house and then we have the gardens in the front of the homes so on the verge along the road we have gardens which are all landscape and they are also irrigated from from the dam so you'll see on all the imagery um which which we've sent you know to every to the clients or which we can send to the clients and you guys want to have on your site you'll see that that there's a lot of open space within the development that's probably one of the most unique features of this development is that there's a lot of open space you know there's a massive dam there's about a kilometer of walking paths within the estate so there's a lot of you know space where people can live outside and we've tried to make that one of the features of of the development is that the outside living is something to which you know you'd want to focus your home so the outside space you know as I said that those gardens we'll put in the irrigation and the irrigation is actually done from the dam there's also a borehole which pulls up the dam and again this might not sound that relevant to people sitting throughout the country but we we have to remember that just 24 months ago Cape Town was in the middle of a serious drought you know so having things like this that that will allow your garden space and and your properties to look presentable right throughout the year and you know with with a sustainable source is something that's that's very you know that's important nowadays as well as the security you know I think that's something which we need to touch on you know with regards to particular properties it is within a security estate we have man security you know with patrolling guards there's biometric fingerprint access to the estate every guest is signed and checked in and called you know to to the property only before they're allowed in there's electric fencing surrounding the entire estate and then also you know camera system so with that focus being on creating quality of living you know within that that space it's important that that space needs to be secured too because we find a lot of young families moving into that area I think security is one of the biggest things on everybody's mind when they're moving to developments and I think it's also a key selling feature for developments is that you get that security that freestanding households just don't have or can't offer to the same extent specifically within the price points you offer your developments from but keeping to the outside theme what other amenities are available to customers that are going to purchase within this development okay so within the developments I think you know we've covered the things like the walking parts you know the box the kick about you know the dam and a lot of beautiful landscaping throughout so that that would be within their state I mean around you know the the surrounding area there's a lot of shopping facilities I mean I think within a one kilometer radius you'd cover brands like Woolworth's checkers pick and pay spa you know all of the major brands have prominent shopping you know within the vicinity there's good schooling you have a number of schooling options especially from the Kiro group which is very popular of this way at the moment there's two different Kiro schools and then I think the biggest draw card in that area for future potential is the fact that the university will be constructed two kilometers from our doorstep so it is an area which is undergoing a development and transition with a lot of you know offerings in the area and which would still be established from an accessibility point of view it's nice because you know if you're based in Cape Town and heading out out of the northern suburbs of Cape Town or even the prominent landmarks being the Brackenfold, Durbanville, Balboa, Tiger Valley areas all of those are very easily accessible from our site and there's also a hospital private hospital just down the road a medical hospital so it's really a very sustained area. So we have a first-time buyer show that airs on Wednesdays and if you're on that first-time buyer show speaking directly to people are looking to purchase their first homes what would you say that makes developments one of the better choices for somebody looking to purchase their first home? Okay so I think something that people need to to consider is we always speak about the saving you know when you buy a new house so to say well if I buy new I'm not going to be paying transfer duties so that's a substantial saving there's a number of things which that actually unlocks the one is that the cash element that's needed to actually become a property owner that requirement is a lot less you know because traditionally if you buy a second at home you'd have to finance those costs so looking at a new development you know the fact that you need less cash to actually enter the market I think that is one of the attractive points to to to be in a new development another thing that a new or that you need to look at is it's not just that cash element if you go and look at how long it's going to take your bond to capitalise the equivalent of the transfer duty so if you're saving 100,000 or 80,000 on transfer costs if you take allowance it's going to take your bond to reduce by 80,000 rand it's about the equivalent of three years worth of repayments so you're not just saving 30 you know the 80,000 rand it has a large effect on that overall ownership cost but then again new developments there's a lower life cycle costing within that first five to seven years you know 10 years your maintenance costs would be a lot lower than on a second-hand cost so again it's that cash element you know that that it needs to invest in which would be a lot lower you know previous generation stayed in homes for 20 years you know worked at certain jobs for 20 years you know that was a lot more tendency in the past nowadays people are moving homes every five to seven years that's on average so if you're buying in a new development and you fall within that framework what it does allow you to do is to actually move without having costs of upgrade you know five to seven years down the line the property would still be new enough to achieve a good model value without having to to reinvest and what we also find is that new developments areas where there's new developments new development nodes tend to have good capital growth because it's driven by the cost of construction the replacement cost and the replacement cost drive will always be there so that helps you achieve good capital growth so new developments there's a lot of pros you know for it and especially for first-hand buyers where the interest rates you know to know is what they are now if you're able to find a project which suits your needs and you know the accessibility to that market due to not having those upfront costs I think plays a huge role absolutely I think also a lot of people try and try and mitigate that savings if they are all purchasing within a free-standing free-standing household on houses that maybe looks slightly out of date thinking that the money they're saving on purchasing this house that's slightly out of date they'll utilize then on performing different refurbishments and then they realize that life kind of gets in the way and they don't have the time and a house that looks kind of out of date now looks very very out of date in 10 years time when they decide to move and you completely avoiding that if you decide to purchase within a development because you guys are already providing houses that are cutting edge super modern really nice and speaks towards the people now looking to purchase houses and where they don't need to worry about trying to renovate or trying to change things they're purchasing a house that has already been made according to their needs you're offering them different packages and in 10 years time not only have they saved on their transfer duty they're leaving knowing that they've got an investment you know they've made some capital capital gains you've mentioned how the university is being built there's schools there there's all these things that speak quite big into the investments of these properties yeah and I think you know something that that we can never retrofit is is modern design guidelines you know these things and the certain framework within which new homes are developed you know with percentages of window space to floor area you know for heat transmission and heat and loss in and out of the homes which makes your house more efficient from an energy perspective there's things that the solar uses and that you know you know just from a design perspective reaching you would never be able to retrofit or you could retrofit into an existing house but the cost would never outweigh the benefit and so from a new perspective you ensure that you're always buying the latest design guidelines which would help with efficiency and the lifecycle costing off of those homes. So now to close off I wanted to ask you Rowan how is private property and your relationship with private property influenced the way you market properties as agents? It's been it's been great a bit of background about myself I was actually with the private property group a number of years ago before I started artisan agents you know it's been awesome to be able to continue that relationship even once we had moved along so private property has been been core you know in most of the development work that we've done got a very good working relationship with a group in the brain and one of the the portals where we can really showcase you know what we have on offer so it's been great so thanks for that you know it's always good to work with you guys. We're looking forward to continuing this fruitful relationship so that is Rowan Alexander from the Alexander SWAT property group and he was showcasing the Stonewood Village Homes which is in the Stonewood estate in the northern suburbs of Cape Town. Rowan thank you once again for making some time for us on this interview. Cool thanks thanks Jen. So for everybody tuning in please don't shy away for taking a look at this development you can see it on private property all the details will also be within this podcast thank you so much for coming on this journey with us and I look forward to seeing you all again this time next week thank you and goodbye.