Going Flat Out - Fast

The plan was to renovate and sell the first property to use the profit as a deposit on the second property. This was the start of our our love story with property.

After a few delays with the registration of the property, we finally took transfer of the property in the middle of October. We knew we had to renovate this property as quickly as possible to avoid all the "unfun" costs of having a bond and a property.

Both of us had full time jobs and Guy was racing in the South African Rally Championship, and preparing his own car as a privateer. This left very little time for the renovation, but we had to make it happen.

We managed to complete the apartment renovations and turn the Ugly Duckling into a Swan, by the end of November. Our next major decision was what to do with this property now? Its Peak Season in Ballito in December and even if we were able to sell it in December, nothing was going to start happening until January. We decided to take advantage and put up our little Swan for holiday rental. Not knowing any better we went to a holiday letting company in Ballito. They charged us all their management fees, and by 8th December we didn't have one booking... not even for Christmas.

We started advertising the property on Social Media, sharing details with friends who passed it on to their friends. The bookings started coming in and by the end of the Holiday Season, we had managed to cover the costs of the bond and other property expenses for 6 months. This gave us the breathing room we desperately needed.

Using the power of Social Media, we advertised our property for sale and by the end of January, we had sold our first property. Now we were patiently waiting for the developers to finish the second property.

After a few months we called the owner of the first property to see how it was going. He said it was going well, they were renting it our on Airbnb and had a great occupancy.

We were skeptical of Airbnb... until August 2018.

We purchased a flat with the intention to renovate it. We purchased it at a Bargain price. We renovated quickly and it did not sell. We didn't even have one prospective buyer walk through the doors. After 2 months of this quiet, we thought maybe we could Airbnb... what did we have to lose?

So we scrambled beds and furniture and all the basics needed for a holiday at the beach. This little apartment took off like a Ferrari at Formula 1. We had a 90% occupancy for 3 months. In month 2 we finally had a lovely couple walk through the door and they bought the apartment.

We loved hosting.

We then did something we and our families thought was crazy. We put our own Apartment on Airbnb for December. We love to travel and with working full time, December is our time to explore the rest of the world. We were then contacted and asked to if we would rent out our home for 4 months as this family was immigrating and needed somewhere to stay until the Visas were finalised and the container left the shores of South Africa.

We said YES!

But now we were homeless and we still had to go to work.

We moved into a one bedroom apartment that was 1/4 the size of our home. We then discussed how this would be a great apartment for Airbnb, its already furnished and just needed a few things. We managed to convince the owner to let us do minor renovations such as tiling and painting, we added a few items needed for Airbnb so that when we moved out, it would go on to Airbnb. 

At the start of 2019, this little apartment took its place on the starting grid of Formula 1 and was now competing against the best of the best. The owner had previously hated rental tenants due to the drama that often follows them. With us managing the property, for the first time in years there was some good cash inflow. He then asked us to manage 3 more of his apartments. 

Later in 2019 we were in Mozambique and started chatting to a couple who invited us to go finishing with them. Turns out they had a holiday home and they asked us to start managing the property for them on Airbnb. 

During 2019, Guy had started racing in Zambia and in 2020 he was meant to compete in the African Rally Championship but 2020 saw Covid take over the world. This didn't stop our Airbnbs; it made it more popular. By September 2020 we were managing another property in the ever popular Santorini Estate. Just when we thought things couldn't get any busier we stumbled across a deal - finally an apartment to renovate. But this time we decided to keep it. The timing was worse than the first property; we had 3 weeks to renovate this property from head to toe before the holiday season and before we weren't allowed to build anymore. We did it in 20 days. 

By the end of 2021 we had 8 properties. This is when Flat Out was created and we decided that this was something we loved doing and wanted to expand on as our property portfolio has continued to grow - Flat Out.