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 23: Mistakes & lessons learned from buying 5 properties in 4 years
Episode 22: Setting up real estate investment structures
Episode 21: The science of property management
EPISODE 20: Part 2 All about land: Creating 7 income streams from 1 piece of land
Episode 20 Part 1: The connection between land ownership and generational wealth
Episode 19: Lessons from being involved in 600 property transactions
Episode 18: Real estate investment trends in Zambia
Episode 17: Building an investment property portfolio with 600 residential units
New Year Special: property goal setting exercise
Christmas Special: How to go from zero units to multilets in record time
Episode 16: How to negotiate and own 8 properties with no money in 18 months at the age of 24
Episode 15: How to make R35, 000 per month from 1 property in the township
Episode 14: Investing in 16 high cashflow units Ekasi
Episode 13: Building a financial legacy for your children using real estate
Episode 12: From high-school drop out to properties that cashflow at R270, 000/US$18,000 per month by 23
Episode 11: How to go from 1 property to 74 property deals
Episode 10: How to own a profitable commercial building regardless of your income, networth or credit record
Episode 9: Building a property portfolio that makes R105, 000/ $7000 income a month
Episode 8: How to make an extra R18, 000/$1,800 profit per month with 1 property
Episode 7: How to start a properly portfolio for less than R3000/$300 per month
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