In this week's episode of the Property Magicians Podcast, we talk to Matimba Masinga, a Soweto-born entrepreneur, father and husband. He started off his journey at a young age - working in his father's business. His father was a demolisher (used to break down buildings). In 1984, his father opened the first Black owned furniture company - he recycled materials he got from demolishing buildings to build furniture. He was drawn to real estate because of the work his father did - he would see his dad demolishing beautiful houses because developers wanted to build town houses or office parks, which fascinated him and when his father bought the Saturday Star, newspaper, he would look at the property section and tell himself he wanted one of those. He promised himself that when he started working he'd go into property and build township rooms. When he started working he bought his first property for himself to live in; in 2010 he got a lumpsum somewhere and decided to buy a delapidated flat (apartment) at auction. He then renovated and partitioned the flat and got tenants. In 2012 he bought a property using his credit card. The first year and a half nothing happened with the property - the property was sitting there and he was paying off the credit card debt. He got two of his friends to partner with him on the property, but the relationship didn't go well and he ended up losing a friend and a business partner. He then decided to build multiple cottages on the property and asked his aunt and brother, who were in the same business as his father, were able to supply him with second hand building materials for the entire project and he was able to pay them off little by little. This was the beginning of his property development journey. He then decided to look for like-minded people and joined the South African Property Investors Network where he met other investors. They pulled their resources and started buying and investing in properties as a collective. They started flipping properties together, which worked very well; he would then take the profits and put them back into whatever development he was working on. This is another gem packed episode. Tune in!