Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa Real Estate Investor Magazine - April 2017 | Page 65

O
nce a young boy growing up in Pimville,
Soweto, now the Director of Black Real
Estate, Thato ‘TT’ Mbha is fast making a
name for himself as the go-to real estate practitioner
for high net worth celebrities in South Africa.
His friendship circles include SA Idols judge,
Somizi Mhlongo, he’s already been featured in one of
the country’s popular men’s magazines, Destiny Man,
and is now being described as the man responsible for
bringing swag back to the real estate industry.
That being said, TT insists that his services are not
exclusive; he works with anyone and everyone looking
for property to invest in, no matter the size of their
budget or the colour of their skin.
I recently caught up with TT to find out more about
his unique business model and vision.
Beginnings
TT is a qualified fashion designer, Chartered Marketer
and a recently qualified Master Practitioner in real
estate. His primary passion is real estate, however,
which is what eventually lead him to establish his own
company, Black Real Estate, in 2014.
“I always knew I would work in real estate one day,
I just didn’t know how,” TT explained. He described
scenes of himself as a young boy walking the streets of
Soweto with his friends, standing on piles of rocks to
look at houses ‒ the ones on street corners, specifically
‒ while dreaming of owning a corner house of his own
one day.
TT very much attributes his current success in real
estate to his experiences growing up in pre- and post-
apartheid South Africa. “I come from the era of black
kids who were the first to be accepted into white schools
in South Africa. I went from my predominantly black
neighbourhood to a school populated with Indians,
Coloureds, Whites ‒ you name it. It was initially quite
a culture shock for me, as I then had to go back to the
township each day. And I had to be black about it.”
“I eventually had friends of all colour and from
all neighbourhoods in Johannesburg. I believe this
experience has made it easy for me to work with clients
across all demographics. This ranges from families
wanting to move out of a township for the first time, to
high net worth individuals who can afford a property
worth millions.”
“Keller Williams stood out for me because of their
empowering business culture. The entrepreneurial
partnership I formed with them allows me to operate
under my own branding, with their full blessing, and
provides me with access to Keller Williams’ resources.
This has greatly reduced my overheads,” explained TT.
This partnership has also enabled him to extend his
services to a pool of U.S. based investors looking for
property investment opportunities in Johannesburg
and Cape Town. In turn, TT develops partnerships
with small, black-owned businesses ‒ painters,
photographers, plumbers ‒ to provide them with
ongoing work opportunities. He selects these
businesses based on their levels of excellence. “They
MUST deliver,” he emphasised, “I’m not trying to
use BEE to leverage my business on the merits of my
‘blackness’ alone. I want to become the most preferred
agency of choice because my services are good, not
because it will make other companies look good to
work with me.”
Partnerships
The strategic partnership between Black Real Estate
and Keller Williams Realty Worldwide evolved
after TT did some shopping around to learn about
other agencies’ business models and partnership
opportunities.
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