A newly launched app, focusing on residential buy-to-let property, places the right tools at the fingertips of real estate investors.
Investing in property offers you double whammy returns in the form of monthly rental from tenants that pay to rent your property plus capital appreciation from selling your property for more than you paid for it.
The new PropertyClan investment app can be used by seasoned investors or those that have always wanted to invest in property but lack the know-how or confidence to go at it alone.
As with any investment, you want to ensure that you are making sound, risk-managed decisions and the PropertyClan tech start-up team has lined up the best professionals in their fields such as conveyancers, mortgage bond originators, financial analysts, deal structuring experts and software developers.
In a nutshell, the PropertyClan specialists have built an app that provides instant access to carefully selected off-market deals with professional-level analysis to deal with the two biggest hurdles facing would-be property investors: finding a good property to buy and a lack of skill.
“We wanted to create an application that made investment-grade properties accessible to anyone, regardless of their skills or experience,” says PropertyClan CEO, Michael Egner.
The process behind the app is fourfold: it finds suitable properties for you, matches them to your profile, facilitates the transaction and manages the property for you – sort of like Tinder for property investors and you can sign up for free and start investing immediately.
An optional extra is the paid-for Prime membership which allows you to boost your returns to sky-high levels by saving you up to R20 000 in up-front cash per property deal. The Prime membership also gives you discounted property management and priority access to new deals, amongst other perks – all for R800 per month.
Instead of searching for properties on the internet, contacting estate agents and visiting countless properties that do not meet your needs or your preferences, the PropertyClan app takes the slog work out of investing and brings curated analysed deals to you that match your profile.
Signing up with PropertyClan is free and creating a profile is simple with the easy-to-follow prompts. The analytics built into the app will match your profile with properties based on your stated preferences and readiness to invest so it is important to keep your property up to date, says Egner.
“We find deals through our professional networks, partnerships, and lead generation campaigns,” he says.
Many of the best assets do not make it to public platforms because they are snapped up by professional investors before they get there, but now our users can also have a bite at the cherry, he says.
There is no commitment to buy when you sign up with PropertyClan.
You will see deals on offer on the app and will be able to evaluate them and discuss them with one of PropertyClan’s Investment Strategists.
“You are only committed when you sign the final paperwork on the property and the bond.
For first-time investors, we have a great selection of low-risk properties that are already tenanted. Our Investment Analysts are committed to ensuring all clients get off to a solid start on their investment journey and grow steadily into confident professional investors,” Egner explains.
An important component of property investing is having all the necessary information. PropertyClan crunches the numbers for you and provides you with important decision-making figures such as whether the property is tenanted, and what the monthly rental, levies and bond repayments are. The app also provides you with calculations such as the net yield (what you earn on your investment after deducting bond repayments and other costs), your monthly surplus and annual returns percentage.
PropertyClan focuses on residential buy-to-let properties, so once you decide to invest you will own the property in your name providing you with peace of mind.
Other property investments on offer include the renovate-and-flip and the multi-let communal/student housing option.
For more experienced investors, PropertyClan offers private equity investments where you invest in the shares of a company that owns and operates a large building with multiple tenants. If you opt for this type of investment, you will receive dividends and a large pay-off when you sell your shares.
A major benefit of investing in property is that you do not have to use all your own money to buy a property. You can borrow money from the bank in the form of a mortgage bond. If your property performs well and you sell it for a profit, you would have earned money on any deposit you put down plus profit on the money that the bank lent to you.
As part of its service to you, PropertyClan will source the best deal mortgage bond for you and will manage the entire transaction from arranging a viewing and finalising the deal. They will also keep you up to speed the whole way.
When you want to sell your property, you can do so at any time, either yourself on the open market or with the assistance of PropertyClan which can sell it to another property investor or provide you with a valuation of your property so that you can decide how much to list it for on the open market.
Property investments require management, and you may not have the time, knowledge or inclination to source tenants, credit check tenants, collect monthly rentals, attend to property repairs, and pay expenses such as sectional title levies and municipal costs.
To provide you with a handoff property investment, PropertyClan offers an in-house property management service that will take care of the monthly management details so that you can sit back and enjoy your investment returns.
Management fees usually amount to 10% of the monthly rental but if you sign up as a PropertyClan Prime Investor, the fee is reduced to just 8%.
