Find out what Private Property's CEO, Simon Bray, has to say about the fourth season of Win A Home so far!
Search for a home on any device, anytime, anywhere. Private Property. A home for everyone.
Simon Bray: Season 4 of Win A Home has been incredible so far. I think it's unbelievable to see what the design duos have been able to accomplish in the spaces that have been provided. I think the estate has been remarkable. Who knew that such a jewel could be in the middle of the south of Joburg, the obviously Eye of Africa, the beautiful estate, and it's the location for the homes themselves. But estate living is such a trend in South Africa right now, something that's incredibly popular on the website as well. So it was good to cruise around with the Win A Home team and actually profile various estates and the various lifestyle opportunities, security features, and reasons why people would choose to live in those estates. And there's a lot to like about the Eye of Africa estate that's hosting this year's competition. It's so much more than just a golf estate. It's easy to look at the kind of drone footage and the overlays, and you fixated on the golf course and the beautiful homes. But I think the lifestyle component is what's really going to draw people in. In fact, our units are not even a minute's walk from this beautiful old converted building that's now a deli, and a restaurant, a beautiful deck wraparound, and you get opportunity to kind of stroll there with your family and enjoy a social day out. And I think that's the type of lifestyle that's going to draw people in. In fact, I think it was one of our property experts that was talking about the value of estates and why the value of property inside of estates can grow so much more than those suburbs outside. And it really has got to do with this exclusive community component. The fact that there's only a certain number of houses and once those are all sold, the value can only go up because people want to come in. And the things that draw people in are those unique lifestyle opportunities. The website received a tremendous excitement when the show airs. Plenty calls to come and enter on the competition pages, and you can understand, I mean it's a phenomenal prize. This year, the fact that we've got design duos instead of just solo acts has made a really exciting component to the show. I think it's added life and energy that when you first look at Brad and Abiah-
-you're going to get something different. You're going to get something energetic and unusual. But throughout the show, they've actually brought some interesting ideas to the mix, and I think, overall, they're bringing their own brand and their own polish to the show. Welcome to the jungle [laughter]. Welcome.
Simon Bray: What I've enjoyed about Mpho and Lesego is the fact that they've injected this persona and this character into the designs that they do. We do that here at Private Property. If we're designing a user interface, we try and understand who we're designing it for, and so I think that's quite a cool idea. And then I've really enjoyed the combination of Tshepo and Banele. I think there's this artistic and technical element that you see in their team. I think Tiann even referred to them in one episode.
For me, the strength is their combination of Tshepo's technical background in interior design, and Banele's artistic vision for rooms. That's their winning formula.
So very, very good to see the various teams, how different they are and how passionate they are about achieving the goal of winning this competition. And in fact, even the mentors are getting to pulled into their team. I'm starting to enjoy them as much as part of the team as the designers themselves.
Simon Bray: They're young, they're creative, and they think young.
[Insert] You've used one chandelier. I think it's enough [laughter]. Simon Bray: Yeah. The sponsors this year have been incredible. We've got some of the best names in interior decor products available for the homes. They've been spending their own budgets, and the value of the products added and combined with their budget means that it's well over 600,000 rands worth of value being added to these homes. The judges this year, I think it's a great mix of experience and insight, particularly in the interior design space, in the interior design world. I mean I had three seasons as a judge, so I know how difficult it can be to walk into these beautiful rooms and then you're asked to tear it to shreds. It's lovely to see Donald, our design winner from season one being in the show. I think he's grown so much in the period of time. I'd like to think Win A Home was very much the birthing of that design tenant. And he's adding a great level of insight to these new contestants on a weekly basis. Katlego, coming from the Plascon side, from the color and trend side, I think is doing an amazing job.
[Insert] That mirror, recipe for babies [laughter].
Simon Bray: And it's quite a nice mix-up to have a new fresh face every week as a guest judge because I think that keeps the contestants on their toes. They never really know what to expect. I know certainly in previous seasons we'd have a little bit of a same-same with the judges each week, and contestant will start to adjust their patterns to what they thought we would like, whereas I think now you've got this freshness that keeps them exploring the limits, which is good. There's so much still to happen in this competition, particularly the living room and the open-plan kitchen, how those two hang together. I mean that's always pivotal in any home. We see it on the property marketing side how important it is that you're living space, you're entertainment space, becomes the heart of the home. So it's going to be very interesting to see how they move through those challenges. I think there's still a lot more drama to come. I think we certainly haven't seen the last tears, and laughter, and nails bitten in this competition. So it's going to be interesting to see how we see the run-in. And we can't forget that at the end of this is going to be a viewer, just somebody that's presumably on the couch watching the show right now, that's entered this competition, that's going to be the lucky winner of one of these homes. And they're going to get to walk into one of the three, choose it as their own. And I think that's always for me the most exciting part of the show is the big hand-over. So that's what's at stake here. It's a massive prize, I mean Danilo stands up every week and says it's the biggest prize on TV and it certainly is. So it's going to be great giving that away again. Certainly not something that I ever get blase about that we can be a part of something so big, and for a business like Private Property which is all about marketing beautiful homes, it makes sense to be partnering with a show that gives one away. So we're very excited for that part of the show.
Private Property. A home for everyone.
