Neighbourhoods as seen on Afternoon Express
Channel: Private Property
Date: 2015-12-03

Settling down in the right neighbourhood can be quite challenging because there are so many factors to keep in mind like, what is the travel time to work? Is it a family-friendly spot? What are the schools? Where are they? Or perhaps you want to be close to the ocean or the shops. We all have different needs, and now there is a one-stop solution to help you with all of this. Private Property offers you neighbourhoods, on their website, where you can have a look at just what these different neighbourhoods in South Africa have to offer. In our loft is Private Property CEO, Simon Bray, as well as one of the local heroes, who was featured in neighbourhood videos for the Private Property website. Jared, Simon, welcome to loft.
 Let's begin first of all with why Private Property started this whole idea of neighbourhoods? Because I think it's so innovative and I love company’s who innovate.
Yeah. It was really a no-brainer for a property website. Property you've heard it said before it's all about location, location, location. And so you’re not just choosing the home that you want to move in to, you're not just choosing the asset that you want to invest in, you're really choosing a neighbourhood. So what we wanted to do was put those neighbourhoods online. We wanted to make them visible. We wanted to talk to locals that lived in the area, and really, promote what living in that area is all about - ultimately onto that question, "Where do you want to live?"
I think it's certainly an emerging rich media context online, and I think it's really relevant to people, the stuff that you see in your Facebook feed, and the stuff that you're getting over Twitter. It's all video these days and it's all incredible production value as well. So we decided we wanted to bring that element, that experiential element of what it's like to live in an area online. It's not just facts and figures.
I love that so much. How did you guys go about choosing your different heroes from the areas?
Ultimately, we wanted a different personality for-- all of the different personalities around South Africa.  Each neighbourhood has got a unique vibe, it's got a unique energy, and a person is a great way to visualize that, it's a great way to bring that story to life. So one of the things was to make sure each of the locals was very different from one another because our neighbourhoods are so different from one another. We've had a great surfer in Durban, we've got an entrepreneur in Sandton and of course, we've got Jared the restaurateur from Atlantic Seaboard
Jared obviously being chosen to be the hero of the spot of the Atlantic Seaboard.
You know what? It was actually quite a funny story. I met the production crew, they were filming at one of my favorite restaurants in Cape Town at that time and we got chatting. We're like, "What you guys filming about?" I started speaking to them about my concept - the little business that I'm running down the street here. And they said, "Why don't we come and visit, we’re doing a shoot, why don't we come in and speak to you about it as a local hero. I was like, "Me, a local hero?" I was like, "I've been out of town for so long, am I really a local hero" But it was great and it was fantastic, really enjoyed it.
Why did you personally choose the Atlantic Seaboard?
You know what? For me, the most important thing when choosing maybe a neighbourhood or a place what I'd like to call home is balance, and the Atlantic Seaboard is balanced to me. Mountains, ocean, great residential properties in between, good balance of outdoorsy-type lifestyles, fantastic restaurants, great people.  I mean, it was a pretty clear-cut decision. I was a Camps Bay boy 
So Simon, really I think-- I love what you guys are doing, it's like I said, "You're innovating and after video hopefully, there'll be a whole bunch more innovations that would come out, eventually make telepathic things that come out of Private Property.
Yeah, a virtual reality helmet or something 
If you're in the process of house hunting and looking for that new home in your ideal neighbourhood, why not take this weekend to check out some show houses to have a look at what our beautiful country has to offer?