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When Estate Living sat down with Dandy Matamela, Chairman of the BeMore Group of Companies, to find out more about his development company’s unique approach to developing homes for the rental property market, we learnt about the man behind the name and how he hopes to give back to aspiring property entrepreneurs and developers.
From residential development to social housing
Dandy, who graduated with a Bachelor of Architectural studies and holds a Masters degree in Business Leadership, started his construction career by building for friends and family. One of his first builds was an extension to his mother’s home in Naturena, which he built with hydro form bricks on a shoestring budget of R60 000. A few years later when he was only 24 years old, he had the opportunity to tackle his first big property development, a residential development of 17 townhouses in Polokwane valued at R12m in 2007, which was funded by Business Partners.
In 2008, he was appointed as the CEO of Yeast City Housing and became the youngest CEO in the social housing industry. In this role, he turned around a company that was on a downward spiral and made it profitable. More importantly for him, this is the place where he became interested in social housing and the idea of providing homes for the unbanked.
‘This is a cause that is very close to my heart. I fell in love with the idea of providing affordable rental housing for those who could never dream of being able to afford to rent a built home. And so this is how our first project The Dawn Village came about. All our developments, which have mostly become student-focused, have ‘village’ in the name because we want to provide places of peace and calm, similar to what our clients experience in their rural communities, but instead in the urban city,’ says Dandy.
Rejuvenation is a key part of each development
The Dawn Village, the first development of its kind, in Pretoria North, primarily an industrial area, had very little rental opportunities available and so it was also a rejuvenation project for the company. The development, built on an old landing strip included 53 affordable rental units which have now been repurposed as NSFAS student accommodation for the TUT Soshanguve campus.
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‘Urban rejuvenation is about being bold and creating something with purpose. Often this encourages more development. Which is exactly what we saw happen around The Dawn Village,’ he says.
Other projects include the Village Hub – originally an abandoned building, but which is now renovated, @125 Madiba Street – also a dilapidated building that has been transformed into modern rental units, and Eastway Village, originally with 108 units which has also been repurposed for NSFAS accredited students.
‘Providing affordable rental housing is a game of passion and patience. It is not a get-rich-quick scheme, you are in it for the long haul. At our company we say that we are not in the business of making money, we are in the business of making people happy.’
People development is the goal
This humble approach to business and to service stems from a Dandy’s background. Raised by a single mother living under difficult financial circumstances, he says there are many people who have contributed to the man he is today.
‘I was raised by a whole community, my mother and my grandmother, a teacher who took me in, taught me English, gave me a proper bed to sleep on and many people in our local church who guided me. If I can rise from obscurity in a small little village, then I can also raise my hand and contribute to the greater good in our country. Surely there are more who can do the same as me, and even surpass what I have achieved. If we are passionate about others, we can build a better world,’ he says.
Dandy resigned as CEO of Muma Investments in 2021 and is now setting his sights on fostering entrepreneurship in the property industry and providing training and development opportunities.
‘I am passionate about helping historically disadvantaged individuals. To date, I have consulted with and mentored more than 100 young property professionals looking to enter the market. We help them with funding proposals and to find funding and investors. When it comes to providing training and development, if we can solve this issue, we can avoid a future catastrophe of dependence on government tenders or government programmes.’
