Factors to consider when investing in property

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"Because the South African property market has historically seen good returns, people could assume that it's a fail-safe investment, however, returns are by no means guarantee. Investors must commit to an initial capital outlay, ongoing funding and a fair amount of administration before seeing returns," says Tommy Nel, head of Credit at FNB Home Loans.

Property is a long-term investment that will need upfront cash to fund the costs that are associated with buying a property such as the transfer duties, bond registration fees and deposit, if necessary. There are also certain costs involved in realising one's investment, like estate agents commission, bond cancellation costs, along with the capital gains taxes that investors would become liable for at the point of disposal.

"Property is also illiquid, which means it cannot be converted easily into cash because of the process involved in the selling. This means you need to be very sure that you won't need to tap into the funds that have been allocated to the property in the near future," says Nel.

Ongoing costs

Once the owner has raised finance and purchased the property, there will be ongoing associated costs with the property that will not automatically be covered by the rental income.

"Many new investment property owners simply add up the bond repayments along with the rates and taxes to come to the rental amount," says Nel. "This is wildly overoptimistic and with an investment property you need to know that you will most probably, unless you have paid in a substantial deposit, will be paying into this investments every month for the near future."

Make sure you do research into your area and market related rentals to understand what type of rentals you can expect. It could take up to around seven years or even more before inflation has pushed rental income up into a place that it will cover both the home loan repayments and rates and taxes.

One of the biggest 'angst' for investment property owners, and this is not a financial issue, is the admin that comes with managing tenants.

Using an agency

Owners can either manage the property and rent collection themselves or hire an agency. Managing on your own can be administratively heavy and time consuming. While an agency will take that away they will charge a fee to find, place and manage the property, which will also need to be built into your budget.

"Whether you use an agency or not, you need to ensure that you are in a position to continue paying the bond if the tenant cannot make their monthly rent or suddenly absconds," says Nel. "It is highly unlikely that your property will have continual occupation, which means that when doing investment calculations you need to be able to fund the property in months that there is no rental income."

Other costs that need to be included are the ongoing maintenance costs as well as potential interest rate increases. These costs need to be managed accordingly, with sufficient cash reserves should some of these kinds of risks play out.

"Once you have worked out all the calculations that are associated with investment properties including upfront and ongoing costs, potential rental return as well as your own time that will need to be allocated to the investment, you will be in a good position to ascertain if you want to invest in property," concludes Nel.