Episode 129: Building student accommodation in the township

In this week’s podcast we talk to Nthabiseng Sejake, a property investor and municipal employee from Soweto who works in utility and property management. Her mom is an entrepreneur who owned a shebeen (tavern), which is now a bottle store; her mom also owns 4 properties.

 

She bought her first property to get away from her mom and have space. She bought her first property (a 2-bedroom house) in Protea Glen after being referred by a client. She got funding from Mastandi to get the property and to get building funds.

 

She converted the unit into a 14-unit development where every unit rents out for R3,000 a month.

In 2015, she and her partner decided to buy another property - she quit her job and invested her pension money to build a 10-unit development, where she rents out each unit for R9,000 to University of Johannesburg students. All her units have washing machines, DSTV, and Wi-Fi. To get accreditation, she had to provide the students with transportation.

 

She is working on her third property, another student accommodation (a 3-bedroom house), where she will be housing 6 students at first, thereafter she plans to build the development into a development that houses 35 students.

She works with an attorney and a digital marketing property company, Bathamaga Property, that helps her find tenants. 

 

This is another incredible episode.