Episode 107: How to build a property portfolio that replaces your income in less than 5 years

In this week’s Property Magicians Podcast episode, we talk to Hloni Lebelo. Hloni was born in Thembisa as the eldest of 3 kids, and is a father of 4 and a husband. He works as a team leader at one of the major banks and is also an entrepreneur and an investor.

 

He bought his first house in Pretoria when his mom fell ill and she was given a package;  he convinced her to get into property to create a passive income.

 

They bought land with the aim of building a bottle store but they couldn’t get a liquor license so they ended up leasing the land to a mechanic to use as his place of work, so his mom still makes money.

 

In 2015 he was made a permanent employee but he had bad debt - he was driving a nice sports car, was living beyond his means and had more month than money.

 

He gave himself 2 years to pay off his bad debt, but everything he was getting was going straight into debt and he knew he can’t have money on him that’s not allocated for anything, he came up with a strategy to get out of debt and become financially free. In the podcast he shares his debt repayment strategy.

 

He sold the car and downgraded to a smaller car and in 2017 he bought his first house in Thembisa from a distressed seller. The house was a 2 bed house with a garage and 4 tenants in the backyard. He converted the house into a 3 bedroom house and rented the house out for R4500 after extending it.

 

He later learned that the owner had renovated the face of the house but structurally the house had many issues and was a money pit. He credits the loss he made on that house with why he stayed in real estate investing.

 

He eventually sold the house and got a nice profit from the house because of all the work he’d put into fixing it. He then bought a nice house in Kempton Park which had staff quarters and a double garage, which he partitioned; he fixed up the staff quarters and ended up with 6 tenants.

 

He then bought another house in Kempton Park and his parents asked to move into the house and they gave him their house in Thembisa. 

 

He decided to try investing in Thembisa again - he decided to give people in Thembisa a lifestyle they could get in Midrand and converted the house into 7 units so every unit has its own kitchen and bathroom.

 

And because of his employee benefits at the bank, his mortgage was affordable and he was able to rent out the property at a lower price than usual, which has helped him keep his tenants longer.

 

In this podcast Hloni shares how his property income is now more than his salary and how he’s changed the area he invests in but kept the strategy - he focused on buying properties that have more space and now has 4 properties and is working on his 5th property.

 

This is another incredible podcast.

 

Click play on the audio below to listen to this week's episode.