Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa July 2014 | Page 17

UPFRONT

T

he whole world has turned their eyes to Brazil,
where the passion and the drama of the 2014
Soccer World Cup is playing out, watched by
billions of people around the planet.
Soccer is a global phenomenon - the world’s most
popular sport, played in every corner of the planet.
And FIFA’s Soccer World Cup is the biggest and mostwatched sporting event in the world.

But what does soccer have to do with
property investment?
The similarities between playing the game of soccer
and playing the game of property investment have not
escaped former Liverpool star, Robbie Fowler, who is
believed to own more than 80 rental properties across
the North West of England and is worth an estimated
£28 million. His property portfolio, consisting largely
of terrace houses, is so extensive that Manchester City
fans would sing “We all live in a Robbie Fowler house”
to the tune of The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine during
his time at the club. He has since established the
Robbie Fowler Property Academy.
Indeed, a closer look reveals a few interesting
analogies between soccer and property investment –
offering a few lessons straight from the soccer pitch to
fast-track your property investment strategy.

A beautiful game
What is it that makes soccer so popular across cultures
and continents? What is it about soccer that evokes
such passion that it is universally known as The
Beautiful Game?
Soccer’s true beauty lies in its simplicity. “It is
beautiful because it is simple - you can play anywhere
as long as you have a ball, and if you don’t happen
to have one, you can make one,” explains says Jamie
Trecker, author of Love and Blood: At the World
Cup with the Footballers, Fans and Freaks. “There
are no elaborate rules, there’s no BS like there is in
American football where there’s a rulebook the size
of the telephone book and you never know what’s
going on.” The game is played according to just 17
basic rules, known as the laws of the game. This
makes it very easy to understand, follow and enjoy,
whether you are a player or a spectator.
www.reimag.co.za

SIX STEPS TO PROPERTY INVESTMENT

1

Find a well-chosen property in an area with
good rental demand and good prospects for
future capital appreciation, using customdesigned software to ensure the numbers add
up to a solid investment choice.

2

Obtain the right finance to buy the investment
property, for example, by using the services of
a bond originator that specialises in buy-to-let
bonds.

3

Appoint a reputable rental management
company to find, place and manage the tenant,
as well as the property, professionally and at a
reasonable fee.

4

Manage your risk by, for example, taking out
rental insurance and building up a reserve fund
to cover contingencies.

5

Use the rental income from the property
to cover most – if not all – of the monthly
expenses, including instalments on the
mortgage bond, rates and taxes, levies,
m a i n t e n a n ce , i n s u r a n ce a n d r e n t a l
management fees.

6

As your relatively small investment grows into a
passive, inflation-linked income stream for life,
while also producing capital growth, simply
repeat steps 1 - 5 as your cash flow and risk
appetite allows to acquire another buy-to-let
property, creating yet another income stream
and yet another source of capital growth.

Property investment, too, is stunningly simple - it
is really a matter of understanding a common sense
strategy and implementing a proven system – that can
be encapsulated in just six steps.

A level playing field
The simplicit y of soccer – and that of propert y
investment - ensures that anyone, any where can
play. You don’t have to be born with privilege or
July 2014 SA Real Estate Investor

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