Johannesburg - The backyard rental market thrives in most townships and informal settlements, providing low-cost housing for those who cannot afford the big rental housing providers.
For many years, township property owners have transformed their backyards into rental rooms. This informal market has been the catalyst for the revival of township economies while providing households with a different income stream.
Cobus Truter is the co-founder of Indlu, a business dedicated to transforming township neighbourhoods through lucrative partnerships. Indlu has an app designed to connect landlords and tenants while developing a good track record for both the landowner and the tenant.
The free app lets landowners register their rooms so potential clients can put their offers in. Through the closed-loop vertically integrated platform, the company assists property owners with access to capital, support services, systems and management.
Property owners who utilise the Indlu Living App strengthen their credit score, which enables them to obtain the capital needed to upgrade their rental rooms and expand their portfolios. This is vital since banks often overlook township landowners because of their credit scores.
The Indlu app allows customers to enter into agreements to build informal structures into something resembling a small multi-storey apartment building instead of normal rooms built in backyards, modernising backyard rentals.
Indlu also assists with funding the construction of the structure and designing and building the backrooms. According to African Investments, loans are ordinarily paid off over six and 10 years. The property owner then owns the asset, which would have increased in value, increased the rental income and addressed the need for a modern rental backyard apartment.
The company has partnered with over 100 property owners and has developed rental apartments in parts of Tembisa and Mamelodi. According to Lukas Nel, marketing manager of Empirip group, which oversees the company's different suites, the company has made their software as a service (SaaS) available to thirrd party township and housing rental companies in Cape Town and is in talks with Johannesburg CBD and will expand to other regions in due course.
The company believes that the only way to address the significant housing backlog is through a for-profit, sustainable business model. Every person who owns a piece of land can get a sustainable income from their property.