JOHANNESBURG - Playing Monopoly religiously while growing up has helped a young Johannesburg entrepreneur carve a niche for himself in the lucrative real estate business.
And he’s willing to share his experiences and coach other young, “black kids”, how to make it in the South African property sector worth more than R5 trillion.
Tebogo Molefe, 27, is founder and chief executive of Kagiso Home Buyers, a vehicle with which he buys and sells property in Kagiso township, west of Johannesburg.
He founded the company in 2015 and in 2016 he established another called First Class Property SA, through which he conducts seminars across the country on how to invest in property.
Molefe, who has a qualification in civil engineering from the University of Johannesburg, says he wanted his business of buying, selling and renting property to focus in Kagiso because he grew up in the township and knows the area very well.
Johannesburg businessman Tebogo Molefe, 27, is founder and chief executive of Kagiso Home Buyers, and First Class Property SA, which he established in 2015 and 2016 respectively. Image: Supplied.
“I’m the local expert there when it comes to property. I wanted to focus on Kagiso to also teach people about this kind of business.”
When asked how he got into the property business, Molefe says he used to play Monopoly everyday when he was younger.
“I asked myself if I could play Monopoly in real life. I then started learning about people that were actually doing Monopoly in real life and found out that the property business would work for me,” he says.
“I then started reading books about property and entrepreneurship. I have read about 68 books to date. I also got myself a coach and that really helped me to invest faster and become more wiser as an entrepreneur. I felt that if I did the same thing to others out there they would be grateful of that.”
Molefe says he has plans to expand his businesses’ footprint. “I feel I can do this on a bigger scale. Eventually, I want to get to a point where I develop property and build a brand that does business all over the world.”
Johannesburg businessman Tebogo Molefe, 27, is founder and chief executive of Kagiso Home Buyers, and First Class Property SA, which he established in 2015 and 2016 respectively. Image: Supplied.
He says the message he preaches across the country during his seminars is that one doesn’t have to be old or have a lot of money to become an entrepreneur.
“The first thing you need is knowledge on how to start. I’ve seen people investing in things they don’t know how to sustain. People should read more and speak to industry leaders and replicate what they are doing,” advises Molefe.
To date Molefe says he has personally coached about 100 people to become fully fledged entrepreneurs.
“Some of them have made some quite remarkable achievements in their respective businesses. I tell them you don’t have to be old to be an entrepreneur. Look, this is a market dominated by older white people, I wanted to show that they can do it too,” he says.
Looking back, Molefe says he used to do trade stocks but stopped because that was not his first love.
“I was becoming more profitable, but it all boiled down to what I loved at the end of the day, and it was not trading stocks. Look, I was making money trading in the stock market but I didn’t feel that was for me. I’m doing what I love now, which is property,” he says.
“I would never do bitcoin because it’s not my line of business even although I understand that there are people who are making money out of it. It’s important for me to focus on what I love, which is real estate at the moment,” adds Molefe.