Chickens will soon be coming home to roost for hundreds of investors who have borrowed and bought too many properties in residential areas that are oversupplied with new flats and townhouses, says a leading property educationist.

"The message we get from estate agents and our clients on the ground is that buyers have borrowed far beyond their capacity expecting to resell at a profit or get enough rent to service their debt," says the CEO of YDL Anton de Leeuw. "This is particularly so in North and East Pretoria and the Northern suburbs of Cape Town."

They have been able to borrow too much by applying for different homeloans simultaneously with different banks because lending information between lenders has not yet been perfected.

He says the frenzied buying and development has left end users – both buyers and tenants – spoiled for choice. And a foolhardy few, stuck with empty properties and unable to service their debt, will pay the price by losing their properties, their money and their creditability.

"In a growing economy with falling inflation and interest rates, the damage will hardly be a blip on our national statistics, but it will be an entirely unnecessary tragedy for the defaulters," he adds. "And it is not a precursor to a widespread property price bubble bursting."

"There are excellent property investment opportunities both in and outside the hyped up areas for investors who have taken the trouble to know what they are doing. They have learned that there is no need to rush into becoming rich out of property. Its an asset class that lends itself to steady, long term accumulation of a portfolio and the compounding effect of rising rents over decades rather than years."

And you don’t have to be in your Twenties to build property wealth. De Leeuw says investors in their Sixties have studied at YDL courses and built sold portfolios.

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