In this week’s episode we talk to Lester Philander, a property investor and the founder of Corp Cafe based in Muizenberg, South Africa.
He started his property journey by making an offer on a property in Mitchell’s Plain, but ended up quitting his job to start his business after getting the initial approval but not the final approval, so the process fell through.
A few years later, he and his wife bought their first property to live in Muizenberg and later bought a second property with 3 units on the premises to help family members by renting it out to them. They are now planning to rent that property out to other tenants.
During Covid, he announced that a lot of coffee shops were closing down. So he developed a concept called “rent my restaurant.”
He invested R80,000 into a restaurant, signed a lease and confirmed a lease and then rented out the property to a restaurant owner. The idea was that as a restaurant owner, you would then lease the restaurant with everything in it and you just focus on managing the restaurant and paying them a set fee of R10,000 a month.
The result was great, but he realized that he wanted to make more than R10,000 a month and that Cape Town had more coffee shops per capita than New York City, which means that for a coffee shop to succeed they need to offer a bit more than other coffee shops on the market.
They then started a franchise model (Corp Cafe) where their franchisees can become a hands off restaurant owner (they manage the coffee shops for you), where they buy the franchise for R450,000 and in return Corp Cafe will manage the restaurant and pay the franchisee R10,000 a month (a 24% yield per annum) and reinvest the extra R20,000 profit and leave it in the business bank account for the franchisee to use at a later date.
They currently have 10 stores open and they plan to set up two stores every single month from now on.
This is a really incredible episode.
Episode 79: Growing a property investment to own two residential blocks of flats
Episode 78: How to grow your property portfolio using multiple investment strategies
Bonus Episode: Why families have the same money patterns
Episode 77: Building a boutique hotel chain on the African continent
Bonus Episode: Real Estate investing trends on the African continent
Episode 76: Looking at the Spatial Planning and Land Use Management Act
Episode 75: How to buy 13 properties in one year without putting any money down
Episode 74: How to invest in property in different countries as you travel the world
Episode 73: Diversifying risk by investing in property in the Stock Exchange, South Africa & China
Episode 72: Why you need a Structural Civil Engineer in your real estate tribe
Episode 71: How to create different cash cycles as a property developer
Episode 70: How to grow your real estate portfolio using Airbnb in South Africa
Episode 69: The A to Z on buying properties at auction
Episode 68: Interior Architecture & how Covid is changing building trends
Episode 67: Using shipping container homes to solve the housing crisis and build a property portfolio
Episode 66: The New Year 2021 Episode - Taking a holistic approach to real estate investing
Episode 65: The Christmas 2020 Episode
Episode 64: How to get funding for commercial property in South Africa
Episode 63: How to profit from multi-let properties that cost less than R1 million (US$65,772)
Episode 62: The importance of a town planner and zoning in real estate investing
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