This is particularly true, I think, when it comes to the housing market.
So I was particularly pleased to read that Cape Town's Mayor, Dan Plato, had taken a swipe at some of Cape Town's residents and had basically told them to get off their fat and lazy behinds and start doing something to help themselves.
He was visiting townships in Eastridge and Tafelsig to listen to a litany of complaints about shoddy building work, structural defaults, doors that were not closing properly or light switches that are skew.
Bear in mind that these are houses that are literally being given away. People are not taking large sums from their own savings accounts, putting down the deposits that they have managed to beg and borrow from family and friends, so they can scratch together enough cash to buy a place.
These are properties supplied by government for nothing. You get on a list, you wait your chance and then government gives you a set of keys and says welcome to your new home. And you complain about it? Find fault and want more?
I think back to the very first home that I bought in a diabolical condition in the even more diabolical suburb of Malvern East. The place was really run down and I agreed to pay R32k for it on Deed of Sale (which basically meant that I would be the beneficial owner, but I would have 24 months to raise enough money for a bond).
I had to pay occupational interest of R2,400 a month (7,5% of the purchase price) and the purchase price was fixed until I came up with enough cash to pay the balance required for a bond. The occupational interest was 80% of my monthly salary.
Well, my wife and I got stuck into the place. Although I was never (and still am not) much of a handyman, I replastered the servant's quarters, fitted a gas geyser to the shower (there was only cold water and a toilet there), and ran an electrical connection from the box, underground to the outside room.
Then replastered the garage and repaired the garage doors so that they would actually swing open without getting jammed against the uneven floor. The work was endless – every weekend from early on Saturday morning until late on Sunday evening.
I even rebuilt the wooden floor in the kitchen when, one evening, while holding a tray of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, I stepped backwards and plummeted right through the floor, landing squarely on my bum, with one leg dangling into the void below and the roast beef lying in the dust and cobwebs. The rest of our supper was splattered across the last remaining floorboards.
Both Jacquie and I were young in those days and I suppose we did have lots of energy then. No money, but lots of energy and if we didn't know how to do something, we found out how to do so.
Self-help books from Reader's Digest, magazines such as Home Handyman, Popular Mechanics and the like. And you didn't always have to buy them either: you could scrounge them off other people who were interested into doing things themselves.
In fact, the local hardware shops were a valuable source of information too. I'd pop across the road to the chap working at a hardware shop called the Sandpit (it's still there today) and ask them how to fix a particular problem.
They could usually tell me and, as I got to know them, they'd even lend me a particular specialised tool (like a prop to hold up a lintel so I could replace a doorframe) and not even charge me for it if I borrowed it at closing time on Saturday and returned it first thing on Monday morning.
And they were most helpful – because they could see the amount of sweat equity we were putting into the place. Jax, being a tiny waif of just five feet tall, did lots of work in the garden and even more on the patient tasks of painting things.
She repainted the entire wall inside the house, painted the outside garden walls, painted the old pressed steel ceilings (using a broomstick, a roller and a strained back).
When we needed a particular fitting (such as an old imperial lock for an outside door) we'd go scrounging around builder's yards where knick-knacks from demolished buildings were resold at a pittance and buy them there. We bought an old ball-and-claw bath tub for probably little more than R40 to fit into the only bathroom in the house.
It was an adventure, an experience and it did us both so much good.
Every day that we did a little more work, we got to live in a slightly nicer house. Sure, it was a project that we were doing together and yes, at times we would fight like cat and dog over one or other task that had to be done. There were sulky times, angry times, irritating times and times when you just wish that you could wave a magic wand and get it all over and done with.
But the truth of the matter is that there is no easy way to do anything. It takes hard work and I wish that thousands of the indigents we see in townships around South Africa would realise this too.
Jacquie and I were not wealthy and had not been given some silver spoon by our parents. In fact, we were so broke we could not afford to put together the deposit for a house and the only way we could get a foot into the property market was through the deed-of-sale option that I was lucky enough to be offered by an agent who knew the chances of selling this property were limited if non-existent.
The property itself (it's still there today and in really bad shape) was directly opposite the old Pure & Cool roadhouse in Malvern's Stanhope Street (with drag racing every Sunday night) overlooking the Topstar Drive-In (where you could watch the Saturday night double-feature from the back porch), adjacent to a timber yard and at the eloquent-sounding address of 1 Thomas Street.
Well, guess what guys: in the 18 months that we slaved on that property we were able to take it from a ghetto into a rather pretty little home with its three bedrooms, one bathroom, a reasonable, functional kitchen and pantry, a tidy garden with shrubs and flowers and a place that someone might think was worth buying.
As the beneficial sellers, we put it onto the market at R48k and sold it the same afternoon. So, in simple terms, we never did take transfer of the property, we were simply the "beneficial owners" because of the deed-of-sale clauses and we made R16k (or enough to put down the deposit on a decent second home) for our effort and our sweat.
What was our real investment? Time and sweat. Hard work. Not loads and loads of cash (because we didn't have any) and not blessed with being able to order truckloads of workers to do the work for you.
No, it was hard, manual labour we invested.
So what stops the indigents on the Cape Flats from doing exactly what Jacquie and I did? Why are they any less equipped than Jacquie or I were? Why can't they do the work and make the sacrifices?
Because they are idle, lazy, indigent and demanding. "Give it to me" is there watchword. Not "I will earn it through my own efforts, my own work and my own labour".
So yes, I endorse entirely what Dan Plato says when the home owners are provided keys to houses that might not have A-grade finishes and might need to have a bit of sweat equity from the lucky recipients.
Instead of sitting on your fat behinds and expecting someone to do the work for you, get off those lazy lumps of flesh you sit on and get down to doing some real work. If nothing else, you'll lose some weight and get some real exercise.
Retile your own floors, re-hang the doors that are skew, use some silicon sealant around the bath to stop the leaks and even take some sandpaper and sand down the windows that don't seem to seal properly.
It's that little bit of sweat equity that makes all the difference and that transforms your house into a place that you can call your home. And, if nothing else, you'll actually get some pleasure out of making the changes yourself, of mastering new skills that you did not have before and being able to do something properly yourself.
And take pride in your own property so that you will tile the floors, mend the windows that might be leaking, turn over the soil in the garden and plant some shrubs and seedlings that will, in time, grow and flourish.
Make your house a home – because you own it – that title deed is yours and no one can take it away from you.
And stop whinging about how you feel you should live in an A-Grade mansion. That house is your very own piece of Africa, so make it work for you.
And, let me add that I am not an isolated case either. You ask multi-millionaire Magnus Heystek how hard he worked on that little house in Melville/Westdene just after he bought it and when he was working for a pittance at Sake-Beeld. And, as they say: Kyk hou lyk hy nou.
*Hartdegen writes a regular column for Property24.com. The content of his columns constitutes his personal opinion and doesn't pretend to be facts or advice. Contact him at <*Hartdegen writes a regular column for Property24.com. The content of his columns constitutes his personal opinion and doesn't pretend to be facts or advice. Contact him at paddy@neomail.co.za.
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I must say you can be very abrasive sometimes. ( Most of times )
But you are right. My mom got one of those RDP houses. One room + a bathroom. 6 x 4 metres IN TOTAL. No hot water. The roof wants to leave the house when the Cape Doctor blows, or the winter North Wester for that matter. Soddy, REALY cheap fittings and fixtures.
That was a year ago.
Bit by bit I tiled it for her, changed the plugs, scrounged ( FOR MAHALA, FREE, VERNIET) a geyser, put in a shower,etc. Got a building plan approved; the back yard is already full of bricks that I once again scrounged ( FOR MAHALA, FREE, VERNIET). Planted a lawn, garden and, well, I could probably go on for a month……..
And right next to me, my neighbors: Same old, same old.
But you should find a way to have your message reach the group you are targeting, cos believe me, 95% of them never picks up a news paper and ignore the TV as soon as 7de Laan's knock-off tune starts. – Clive
Totally agree with Paddy's article. The first house my wife and I bought cost R18 500 in Davidson Street, Fairlands, and was advertised as 'the shabbiest home in the area'. We had to borrow money from my wife's dad for the deposit, which we paid back in full. (R300 per month was a good salary then!). I put in built-in cupboards, recarpeted, fitted out the kitchen (which had NO units in it at all, just an old sink). The stove didn't work and was full of cockroaches.
We painted, wallpapered and used tons of Polyfilla. Some years later, we sold it as a much better-looking home for R55 000, and moved to Cresta. When you have to pay for something yourself, you appreciate it. When you get it for nothing, that's how much you value it.
We are in our 60's now and own 3 properties (2 rented), with just 2 smallish bonds left to repay the bank. And it all started with working hard on 'the shabbiest home in the area'. The operational words being 'working hard.' Wording that is apparently unknown to quite a few people in South Africa. – Doug
I don't know who "Paddy" the writer of this article is, but I have the following observations about him:
I assume that he is referring to a period some years ago.
If he was paying R2400 per month in occupational interest he was swindled as he could have paid off his 32k house in 13.33 months.
He was also fairly well paid as 100% of his monthly salary would have been R3000 per month.
He has "Super Human" vision as this is what would have been needed to watch a movie at the "Top Star" Drive In from Malvern, and he would also ld have needed vision which bends around a 180 degree angle as he would only have been able to see the rear of the screen directly from Malvern.
He more than likely has started to suffer from Alzheimers as I believe the Drive In he refers to was the "Stadium" (Stanhope Rd). I believe he has also forgotten how much he paid in monthly occupational interest, more likely R200 per month as he would have been paying an exorbitant interest rate of in the region of 90% per annum otherwise.
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