Imagine, for a moment, our government would treat our public infrastructure like our streets and public buildings. The same way it treats our digital infrastructure. Our members of parliament would work in a rented space where they weren't allowed to vote in favour of stricter environmental laws because the owner, a multinational corporation, didn't allow that kind of voting in its buildings. Nor will it allow a long overdue upgrade to more than 500 seats. This means some members of parliament have to stay outside in the street. And a couple of blocks away, a brand new gym is already being torn down just six months after it was built. It's being replaced with an exact replica at great expense. And the only difference, the new manufacturer also provides streetball as an added feature. Meanwhile, every night through a hidden back door in the city hall, documents that contain sensitive information on citizens from bank data to healthcare records are being stolen. But no one is allowed to do anything about it because searching for back doors and locking them would infringe the signed user agreement. And as absurd as this sounds, when it comes to our digital infrastructure, things like the software and programs that our governments are using every day, this comparison is pretty accurate because mostly our administrations procure proprietary software. This means a lot of money goes into licenses that last for a limited amount of time and restrict our rights. We aren't allowed to use our infrastructure in a reasonable way.  But our public administrations can do better if all publicly financed software were to be free and open source. We could use and share our infrastructure for anything and for as long as we wanted. We could upgrade it, repair it and remodel it in any way to fit our needs and because the open source in free software means that the blueprint is openly readable for everyone, this makes it much easier to find and close security holes. And if something practical and reliable was created digitally, not only can you reuse the blueprint all over your country, the actual thing itself can be deployed anywhere, even internationally. A great example of this is Fix My Street. Originally developed in Great Britain as a free software app to report, view and discuss local problems like potholes, it's now being used all over the world. Everyone benefits because new features and improvements are shared by everyone. If all our software were developed like this, we could stop struggling with restrictive licenses and could start thinking about where and how software could help us. We could concentrate on creating a better society for everyone. So if you think that tomorrow's infrastructure should be in our own hands, help us now by sharing this video and visiting our website, publiccode.eu. It's time to make our demand. Public money, public code.


Okay continuing with our videos for our series on Linux video editing with Kaden live and again this is part of a series be sure to check out the links in the description of the video for the full playlist if you haven't already watched them. So today we're just going to do something very simple we're going to do some pan and zoom to create a picture in picture. I have two clips here one of me talking and one from the clip that we've worked on in previous videos. I'm going to mute both the tracks so that we don't have to listen to it while I'm trying to record here and I'm going to quickly just trim them both up delete the excess just to get something on. So here we have me talking with this on top so you can't see me talking. Now if I wanted to have the audio me talking and not the top video I would unmute this and you would hear me talking and see this video but we're not going to worry about audio in this. So I guess I should clear that out. We're going to click the top video here and I'm going to type it up here zoom. There's two options position and zoom and zoom pan. Haven't really messed with this one this is one we're going to use position and zoom. So I can either drag that to this file to this clip or with that clip selected I can double click and it adds it or if I wanted to I can actually I should be able to let me make sure I'm right about this add it to the track yes. So if I wanted to have multiple clips in this zoom feature that should work although I'm getting a white screen right now. Anyway let me go ahead and click this star here again which is the track effects and I was going to turn that off. For right now we're just going to add the effect to this one clip. Now this is key frameable so I'm going to click this to go to the first frame they always have a key frame on the first frame and now I can resize this and I do want to note that I've mentioned how I can double click this video and it goes full screen. I find that this pan zoom feature when you're adjusting it works better when it's not full screen if you have any issues with that. Let me go ahead and scale this down and grab the center dot and move it wherever I want and now I have a video with me talking and that video over top. Now having two videos going like this layered it's going to slow down a little bit so if I press play here. If we listen to the audio be okay but you can see that both videos are a little jerky it's just dropping frames to keep up with the video. Again if you watch the last video if you use proxy files this would not happen most likely or at least if your computer was fast enough you would get a smoother outcome but again it doesn't matter that it's jerky here it will render okay. This is also why I made sure that when I used proxy clips that I did them the right aspect ratio because if these were not if these were more of a square rather than a rectangle I try to line them up when I go to render they wouldn't be lined up right that's why it's important to make your proxy files the same aspect ratio as your original files. So there we go and we can say we're pretty much done but there's other things you can do as I said it's key frameable so I can click on this video again and you can see the effects here. So let's say I wanted that video to be exact center on me. Well I can do center left right center up down and right now it's centered right in the middle and it keeps the proper aspect ratio of itself even if I make the box the wrong size but again center up down center left right. Now you can also align it to the bottom align it to left align it to the right or align it to the top. So we have those options now you also have fill so right now it's it's filling it and I can center and center this way.  What you want to do is make it full to actual size adjust to original size and then center and center and centered again but I said we have key frames so we can have this move around the screen. So let's say this was a news report I can go like this and right now it has one key frame so it's gonna stay in that one position the whole time. So but let's say at one point I want to make it so it becomes full screen or moves into the part of the screen maybe I move on the screen. I can click here now if you've worked with key frames before you understand this if you haven't then you have to understand I can't just go and add a new key frame and move it and expect it to get to that point and move because what's gonna happen now is over this period of time it's going to slowly be moving the entire you know however long that is four or five seconds but if you want to move within a second you have to set a new key frame of where it was and a new key frame of where you want it. So let's go ahead and pause that choose this and again these little buttons here let you jump to between key frame so I can go to this key frame and what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna remove it so that moves it back up there then I'm gonna add a key frame of it there and then I'm going to move up one second which I can do in the timeline here here or if I want to be very accurate about it I can click in here say eight seconds rather than seven add a new key frame and then I can move it down like so and what this does is again now instead of slowly moving over that four or five second period when I get here you can see it's playing it's staying in one spot but here in a moment it's going to do a one-second move there we go if you've never worked with key frames this takes a little a little bit it's not that hard just takes a little playing around to really graphs the concept if you have worked with key frames at all in any animation software you understand what I'm saying so it's there now let's say at this point I want to go full screen I'll add a new key frame for its act and however long I want the animation to be we'll say one second so I'll move this to 19 seconds add a new key frame and then I can make it full screen full original size center it center it and now it goes full screen there so again we can watch our whole video clip here again and again the video is playing a little jerky it won't render that way if you use proxy clips you'll get better results this out of this but watch video is going to move down so for some reason you move it down it's great if you want the video this is more if you want the video to come in from the side of the screen that's a great option there now it's going to go full screen right here there we go and again if we turn the audio back on we can have the audio from this track playing or this track playing or of course we can use the volume key frameable and have this video I could be me talking and then when we get to the point where it goes full screen fade me out and fade the audio from that in so kind of like a news report type thing so that is picture-in-picture pan and zoom whatever you want to call it in a nutshell there's other ways doing it but I find that to be the simplest in Caden live thank you for watching again this is part of a series check out the link in the description for the full playlist for my channel film or my website films like Chris calm that's Chris with a K you can search through all my videos there also check out my patreon page patreon.com forward slash Melix 1000 if you want to become a supporter that be great can't support me financially think about supporting by sharing liking subscribing so you don't miss any of my future videos and commenting below and of course each week I'm releasing a new video so be sure to subscribe so you don't miss those thanks for watching and as always I hope that you have a great day


today. This is Marc. I'm doing just great. Thanks for asking. You have to be quiet during a lecture at university or you must be quiet during a lecture at university. Evil has to be the reason for such deaths or evil must be the reason for such deaths. Students have to learn English for their future career or students must learn English for their future career. In this lesson we're going to look at the difference between have to and must. So stay tuned. Let me tell you first that have to is used mostly in American English. Must is used also in American English but on property science. For example you will see that are written. Visitors must report to admission offices for example. Must is slowly disappearing from the language. So is 50% less used now than in the past. So is slowly disappearing from the language. They're both modal verbs and they follow the following rules. So we have to the positive sentence would follow the following formula. Subject plus have to plus the base of the verb plus the object and then the time expression if any. With must instead the formula goes subject plus must plus the base of the verb plus object and then the time expression if any. Now this is easy. Remember that must we don't need to. This is one thing to remember. When we write a negative sentence instead we need the subject plus the auxiliary plus not the auxiliary of the tense we are using in this case. So we could be do, does, did or will etc plus have to plus the base of the verb plus object and then the time expression. If we use it in a negative sentence have to it means no obligation or necessary. Instead if you use must in a negative sentence the formula would be subject plus must plus not plus the base of the verb plus the object and then the time expression if any. And in this case if you use must in a negative sentence it means prohibition. I will give you two examples. So the first one would have to.  It's not necessary. This is what I'm saying. With must instead you mustn't drink bleach.   So you mustn't. Now let's go on with it with interrogative sentence. So we need WH question word if any. So WH question word would be where, who, how, what etc. Then we need the auxiliary then the subject then have to and then the base of the verb and maybe the object of time expression in a question. So it depends here. It would change. If you want to watch a lesson on making questions you can click here. For an interrogative sentence with must you have to use WH question word if you have one then must then the subject then the base of the verb and then the time expression or object if any. This is very very rare okay we we usually don't use it in a question. Okay now the most important thing is when and how we use these two. The first rule is use the monover have to to express strong obligation. This strong obligation is based on a rule or law and obviously have to is impersonal. So somebody else tells you to do something impersonal. Instead must we use it to indicate a personal so personal recommendation. Now I have two examples and let me show you the two examples that I wrote. These are the examples that I gave you at the beginning and the first one we have to is you have to be quiet during a lecture at university I said. In this case have to is a strong obligation right. I'm telling you because you cannot speak during a lecture at university. Instead if I say you must be quiet during a lecture at university this is a recommendation I'm saying to someone okay this is the difference. Then another difference or another usage of have to is to say how likely something is and in my example in the introductory example was evil has to be a reason for such deaths has to be the reason and this is likely so it's probable that evil was the reason for such deaths. Instead if you use it with must use must to express convention or certainty about something so evil must be the reason for such deaths. So I'm convinced that evil was the reason for such deaths. Now the third usage is for have to to indicate that it's important to do something. For example the the the introductory example was students have to learn English for their future career. By this example I'm saying that it's important for students to learn English for their future careers. Instead if I use it with must indicates a necessity so students must learn English for their future career so it's necessary for students to learn English for their future career so you can see that it changes meaning. They can be both used with the past so the past of have to is had to remember that if you make a question or a negative sentence you need did for the past right of have to. Now instead if you use must with the past it would be must have plus past participle. For the future in the have to we have will have to so I will have to do something next week for example so it is used for the must we don't have future and so we use have to and one last thing that I want to say about have to is that you can use have got to in British English instead of have to is the same thing. Now let's recap so in this lesson we talked about the difference between have to and must have to is used for a strong obligation instead must is for necessity certainty or personal recommendation so use have to for a strong obligation based on a rule a law imposed by an institution or by somebody must instead is personal and is used in the present and in the past in the future we just used have to that's it for today thank you very much for watching if you have any comments requests or if you want to write your own example using both have to must you may do so under this video please don't forget to share the lesson if you liked it and don't forget to subscribe to my channel if you haven't have a great day and see you next week with a new lesson take care bye bye


Good afternoon, and Aloha Kako. My name is Ray Tsuchiyama. I'm the contributor along with Russell Liu to my left for Asia In Review. And we have an exciting 30 minutes on setting a spotlight on new trends in global tourism today. And we're going to start out with Russell kind of describing a recent conference held in Honolulu that may be the conference that people will look back decades from now as defining a change in what's happening in tourism and business investment for the entire state of Hawaii. He has spent over 13 years in Beijing in law and teaching and is an expert on what's happening in China. And we're going to just turn to Russell and say, what was this conference all about? What's the name and when it was? Tell us the sponsors and so forth. What was this HTA conference? Aloha Ray. Thank you very much. It was really an honor to be part of the Hawaii Tourism Conference this year. The conference set the pace for a vision that I think, like the book, the tipping point, we're going to look five years from now and then think back, that was the magic moment when everything changed. And I think this conference is a real change. It was a fantastic conference. I've been to many global conferences. We were 2,000 attendants all over the world. And it was exciting, it was dynamic, a lot of vision, a lot of clarity. So looking at this conference and vis-a-vis the previous conferences, what was different this time? What was different in terms of the markets for tourism, for how Hawaii positions itself? What were some themes that you can tell the audience? Talking about themes, it was interesting because the Executive Summit, which preceded the actual conference, was designed for government leaders. The governor was there to give the keynote address, as well as industry leaders, and I was fortunate to attend a very humbled by it. And it really set the theme and it was very impressive. We had Steve O'Zell, first of all. He's a national geographic photographer, but he's been to Hawaii over 82 times. And what he did was his message. His whole presentation at the Executive Summit was showing pictures of open roads around the U.S. and the globe. And the message there was, we need to look at an open road because sometimes the open road allows us to focus. It gives us clarity. It gives us a purpose and ideas. And it gives us the solution to the problems we have. So that's at the pace. Then we had Billy Bean, the general manager of Oakland A's. He had a very interesting movie. And his theme, he's made famous because of the movie, the Money Ball with Brad Pitt. And basically what the movie was about was the Oakland A's that were losing steam in the MBL. They had the smallest budget to work with. And what he did was he said, well, people look at baseball players. They look at them six foot five. Okay. They run fast and they look good in uniform. That's what we want to think of baseball players. But it turned out what he did was they hired a geek stats guy who ran the stats and said it wasn't how they look. It wasn't the number of homeruns. It was the guy who got on the baseballs. And that baseball player was usually five foot six, short, squatty guy, 160 pounds. And he was much more valuable than the six foot five guy, the great in uniform. And he said, take the emotion out. Look at your numbers. And you can be more efficient. Wonderful message. Then we had Mark Dunkley, CEO of Hawaiian Airlines. And his message was prophetic. He said, yes, Japan's a great tourist market. They're going to continue. They've in fact increased the flights to Japan. But he said there's a seismic change, a big change. They see it and it's no secret. It's the China up on tourism. They're spending millions more on promotion. And they're going to open up flights possibly to cities that are not on the east coast of part of the country. Seismic change. And he showed the numbers. And it's going to be huge in the next 50 years. And we need to get into it now. We cannot wait for it to happen because competing destinations. So from this macro view of this moment in time, and of course tourism is so important to Hawaii. It's like 7% of the economy. We are very dependent on people coming here and enjoying the natural scenery and also doing investments and create jobs and so forth. Now, I heard that you were on a panel discussing on China and tourism. Any takeaways from there? What were the kind of, if you go down and say, oh, from a macro viewpoint, this is the things that people are talking about. Good. That's an excellent question, Ray. And I was actually on four panels. And it was exciting because this is the first time the HTA has put China all day, which meant that you had an opportunity to hear all the experts. There are several important takeaways that I had. Okay, first of all, we need to understand that the Chinese are here already. A lot of people will think, okay, there's smaller numbers. And that we're going to wait until the money comes. And until the money comes, then we'll do something wrong, wrong, wrong. Why? Takeaway number two. The Chinese are heavy into technology. And one of the big complaints that they had was lack of signage and lack of technology, lack of Wi-Fi. And why? Because living in China, it's my experience also. I communicate daily with other lawyers, other friends in China through WeChat. And what WeChat is, is over-in-the-internet communication. It's real-time. So for example, in Asia, everything is done by word of mouth. So what happens if somebody has a bad trip here, immediately they'll WeChat either the voice message, take a picture, send it off, or type it in. And you have a very interesting point that we cannot ignore that although China has been behind in the economy and technology until recently, their overwhelmingly users of mobile technology and devices for e-commerce, business, all kinds of things now. Even more than Americans maybe. Yes, it's even more because it used to be the PC, now the smartphone market. And actually China has been ahead for five years. I've used WeChat for several years. They call it WeChat. We means hello in Chinese. Wei, wei, wei. Wei? That's right. You know a lot about Chinese language. But in the US, you can see it on your Apple platform, it's called WeChat. We, they drop the I out. So it's real-time. So you know the past, if there was a complaint in the industry about what we did wrong, it would go back, the visitor would go back, and we'd have like two or three weeks to come back and say let's do a campaign because we did something wrong. Okay, but now it's all real-time. So immediately they'll know. So your points about addressing the Chinese consumer or be consumer-centric. We have to respond in terms of signage. We have to respond in terms of mobile technology in Wi-Fi. What are those? Well, especially signage. That was a big thing, not only for Wei, but generally outbound Chinese tourists wherever they go, Europe, US, the big complaint was signage. And really in the Asian culture, it's really a sign of respect because they are a big, big group. In 2015, 129 million travelers outbound spent over $200 billion, and that's going to increase this year. And it's estimated it's going to be close to 300, 400 billion in a few years, money-wise. That's a lot of money. So if they come to an airport and they don't see signage, they see Korean and Japanese, then they feel slighted. And they'll take a picture of that, send it back to China, say, we're not welcome here. And I think we need to take a look at a lesson. And I go back because I've been in Beijing for many years. Six, seven years ago, when I'm in my language commanding classes, I would meet these managers from ANA, Aldeniponir, and Jail. And they were taking Chinese, so I'm asking, why are you taking Chinese? Well, for them it was a requirement, especially middle management. They want to move up, they had to take two years of Mandarin, and they had to be a certain level speaking Mandarin. Fast forward. When I go to Tokyo all the time, stopping over, every airport, Haneda or Narita, everything is not only Japanese, but Chinese, all the Japanese staff, they all speak Chinese, Mandarin, and it's ironic. And I go on the airport express bus. My favorite is actually Haneda, they run every recently. There's Chinese tapes, there's Mandarin, and there's tons of Chinese who travel there. And in my office in Beijing, all my secretaries are eager. They're planning a trip to Tokyo, and they're planning what they're going to buy. So it's no secret that the research showed up at this conference that one of the top five destinations for the Chinese is actually Tokyo. So this is a big learning for Hawaii to learn from Japan about China. And I think, yes, we should learn because they did things right, and we would advance, and maybe the geographic difference of culture, but I think that we can't wait any longer, we need to move on it. The big mistake is if we take the sort of American thing, when they come, I will invest. We can't do that because if they don't see it now, they'll tell the market and they'll just turn away and go back. Two important reasons is that from this conference, the experts said that the two important groups that are traveling are the little emperors. They are between 25 and 40, that generation, and the silver-haired. And the silver-haired are the ones that have a lot of money. They come in here, their language is not so good. So when they don't see any Chinese signs or they get a bad experience, they will tell their friends and you've lost a market.  Is this kind of coming out of the one child policy generation you're talking about? That's correct. There are two sets. There's the 1980s onwards and 1990s onwards. They're slightly different. The 1990s are probably much better in language. And so when they see no signage, they may say, okay, I like the place. I'll come back. Okay, the 80s, maybe their language is okay. So those are the two one-child policies. The categories we're talking about. Age categories. That's right. The silver category, like in Japan, will be less skilled in language, but also eager to go out. This may be sometimes their first trip abroad for many of these people. And they've kind of tried out domestic trips and now they have some money and they're going abroad to Hawaii. And is there anything that you see Hawaii addressing or accommodating kind of like different marketing styles and so forth for the silver market? Sure. I see, because first of all, I think language is important. And I think I was a young high school student working like he had for SABU years ago. And so we learned that to make people welcome, we would say Japanese word konnichiwa or something like that. For the Chinese the same, but for many people, they can't distinguish the difference between Chinese and Japanese. And I have a thing to tell you. All you have to say is one sentence first. Where are you from? If these are from Japan, then you say it in Japanese. If they're from China, you say, anyhow. So you're going back to the hotel industry and training. At the customer level. I mean, this is the point of sale or greetings or people, the concierge that those people and there are thousands of these people who are having direct interaction with tourists. And here you're saying these little things mean a lot. That's right. And the smile and if you know the Chinese anyhow, it goes a long way. It's the experience. And it was the same thing for the Japanese tourists. So we got to think that we got two markets. We're adding on to what we have. And we just need to add a vocabulary. Just a few more words. That's all we need. And the second thing for the Chinese, if you know of a lot of Chinese tourists coming in, our big competitor, we call Long Haul Destinations. And if you can just hold on to that thought about Long Haul, we'll be back in a few minutes after this important break. And you're on Think Tech today. Aloha, everybody. My name is Mark Shklav. I'd like you to join me for my program, Law Across the Sea on ThinkTechHawaii.com. Aloha. Hello, my name is Crystal. Let me tell you my talk show, I'm all about health. It's healthy to talk about sex. It's healthy to talk about things that people don't talk about. It's healthy to discuss things that you think are unhealthy because you need to talk about it. So I welcome you to watch Quok Talk and engage in some provocative discussions on things that do relate to healthy issues and have a well-balanced attitude in life. Join me. Welcome to A Show in the Wheel. Looking forward to see you next month on October 13, Thursday at 11 o'clock. Thank you very much for joining us on Think Tech today. We are continuing a very scintillating, exciting conversation on the seismic change that is right around the corner for Hawaii's tourism market regarding China. And we're going to go into the Long Haul market right now, transportation, which is a key to tourism because that's how people get here. Long Haul is so important. Well, I think that term, I learned it through the conference, we're a Long Haul destination. Long Haul means we take eight hours, 11 hours to get here, direct flights. Short Haul for the Chinese has been like Thailand, Southeast Asia, four or five hour flight. And the reason why we make the distinction is because we need to look at our competition. Where are the Chinese going for Long Haul destinations? And there's a paradigm shift because many Chinese have been traveling. You know, we were talking over the last 10 years, okay? They've been going to the short haul. So they're ready to change your experience. They're ready to try a Long Haul destination. That includes, for example, Australia. And the big competitor we have, an island destination, is the Maldives. And Maldives is incredible. They do so much volume of travelers that there are four flights from their four national cares daily. They even open a Chinese embassy there. So we need to look at the lessons of what they did right. So short haul is all about trips to Seoul, to Tokyo. I mean, of course, Hong Kong was right across the border. But as you pointed out, there's been historically, over the last 10 years or even more, great numbers of Chinese tourists to Thailand, to Bangkok. Easy access via visas and so forth. Singapore is another. But destinations that require a few more hours will include Sydney, Melbourne, New Zealand. So they must be also thinking about responding to the needs and interests and aligning themselves infrastructure to Chinese tourists too. But you pointed out, Japan is one model that we should look at very closely. Are there any place else that came up during the conference that says, wow, they're doing something that's unusual, exciting? Well, I think the Chinese have been going the last couple of years to a place called Maldives. It's off the Indian Ocean. It's really a European enclave for the wealthy. And it's interesting because the hotels there, they put in hot pot kettles for the Chinese. And why do they... For tea. Well, not only tea rate. Yeah, yeah. Why do they do that? Because in Hawaii, we have a lot of Japanese restaurants. So I think the diet, the cuisine is there. But for the Chinese, we don't have the type of food that they... And so they carry... I travel with Chinese. I know this. I think of Fang Bingmen. And it's the noodles. But it's not just like your Udon noodles or simple ramen. It's hot, spicy. Right, right, right. And so when they go to a new destination like Hawaii, they don't have the restaurant. So they're really hungry. Or they go to Maldives. So they come back to the rooms and they just fill the stomach up. They have this hot noodles, okay? So Maldives made the mistake where one hotel pulled the hot kettle tea pots away from the rooms. They left in the rooms of the European visitors. We didn't use them. And so there was an outcry on WeChat in China. I was there in China. And the industry message is, let's stop going to Maldives. Let's boycott them. Let's cancel our bookings. So it hurt really the Maldives. So it's a black guy for the Maldives. That's right. Which they did not understand. The Chinese tourism culture. That's right. And you came to point because we had one speaker who actually was called by the King of Cambodia to personally advise him on Chinese tourism and outbound tourism. So we had her talk and then she gave a fantastic presentation on everything to know about the Chinese culturally. And that's very important. We'll talk about culture, culture, culture. But I think people don't understand the culture. And so we had somebody who said, we've heard this presentation about culture many times. But it turned to that person, in every minute you have. Well, what have you done about it then? The reason why it's being said is because nobody does anything about it to adjust to the market. And it's what you do with it that's important. Now you came to culture, but of course, and I want to go back to about business investment in a short while. But before that, so all these leaders came to the conference from the business community, from research, from the governments, of course, and so forth. So how much is the work to be done by the state government? How much to be done by the private sector, like the Hawaiian Chamber of Commerce and the airlines and the hotels? Or it shouldn't be a coalition who takes the lead and say, we have to organize and do this on a grand scale and make Waikiki a Chinese destination. What other steps are necessary to do? That's a great leading question. Well, I talked to somebody, the head of the Waikiki Association and told them the language is important. Start educating people to look at them and don't assume that they're going to be Japanese. Ask them where they're from and then you can say the proper greeting. I think the other issue is signage and I think it's a sign of respect. If you have Japanese signs, then have Chinese signs. Make everybody feel welcome. But the telling sign is we just two weeks ago, just when the conference began, we had some really important breaking news and the news was this. China Oceanwide has announced they're going to build a second resort besides their own hotel right on the beach next to the Disney Hotel. They just finished acquiring the property to bring in the first Atlantis in the United States. And if you Google that, Atlantis in Dubai, you will see this magnificent 21st century hotel. So it's a mega international kind of thing. It dwarfs a lot of these smaller projects. So we're going to make a great leap and this is what, going back to your seismic leap, this is not only a seismic leap in terms of tourists but also in terms of project size. That's right. To me, it's really shaping that we're here. This is the next level of tourism. It's global destination. Not just a destination but a global destination. We should be proud and we should welcome this kind of investment and we should ramp up for this because it helps us to bring in other good investments, possibly, that can change our look here and not only have one kind of tourism but a global tourism platform that's going to be something greater and make us truly global. And I think it's very important and I think that's not only a statement, the confidence that the high-well Chinese are going to be here because they're used to that kind of luxurious hotel but also other travelers from Europe, from other places where they're accustomed to very high end. So just because the Chinese are coming here doesn't mean you continue business as usual. The Chinese themselves, through investment, are going to bring the bar and level up of tourism in Hawaii. That's what you're trying to say. That's right. Let's invest in here with the Japanese did in the 80s, 90s and let's all benefit from it. So the infrastructure even grows up because of this. But getting back to my question, there's the state government, where is, for example, you talk about language and culture, where does that reside in Hawaii? UH, University of Hawaii, for Chinese language, the high schools, DOE, we had a previous show on immersion. There seems to be pieces of the puzzle that has to be put together. Hawaii Airlines, of course, has a stake in opening up new cities to fly into. But when they come here, if there's not that, you know, the welcome in the culturally sensitive areas, then it's not going to work and we don't have another Maldives black eye. And that's what I think you're very frightened about for the future. Am I correct or are you optimistic? I'm optimistic and I think that not just Hawaii, but overall, I think Americans, we have a Tennessee short-term look. When the money comes, we'll move on it. But I think the second thing is, I think historically Hawaii hasn't had a lot of culture ties with this new China. When I say new China, you mean in China, post-4950s, you know, I can count the numbers on my hand with people that really have relationships or have really been in China. I think you need to listen to them and you need to listen carefully and you need to work with them and that's very important. Now's the time to do it. I think it starts from the governor. But I think I really applaud the Hawaii Tourism Association, George Segeti. He's a businessman. He gets it. He gets it. And thank you to George and Randy Baltimore and JDG with the China side. They get it. They know where it's going to go. In the hotel sector? Hotel sector. So he's leading that brand in hotels. So that's why this conference is electrifying. It was dynamic. And I've been to many global conferences. There was excitement there. Clearly excitement. And I think that we now have to work with the industries and we need to get the government, the leadership to say, okay, remember one thing. Tourism is the biggest driver. And Mark Dunkley, in his speech at the Executive Summit, clearly point out federal spending is down. Military spending is going to go down. What do we have? So we need to work quickly. We need to move on. And in this Executive Summit, and I know Thomson gave a very emotional, I think just a chicken skin presentation. He talked about Hokelia. He talked about the old going around the world, his message that we have to change, you know, how we think, you know, preserve the ocean. That word change and commitment. We need change and commitment. But it really starts with leadership, you know. But I think it's something daring. There's a risk to take. But we have to do it. Now the Mounties, I've never been there, but like you said, it's mostly European destination and full of natural beauty. There's not much shopping going on there. And I felt, wow, it's like going to Lanai or Molokai for some people, except they're very high-end luxury resorts there. Is there a lesson in this? Can these destinations like the Mounties and Kauai or Kona be attractive to Chinese tourists? Well, that's a very good question. You know, you hit it on the point. On a business development track, a speaker came from CETRIPS. CETRIPS is the largest online tour operator in China. It has 250 million members, and they book their travel around the world. And he said a prophetic message that says, Hawaii needs to differentiate itself from Maldives. Maldives has a sudden ocean beaches, same as Hawaii. So what does Hawaii have that's different? Well, we have shopping centers. We have the dollar. We have a different kind of culture. We have sophistication, you know, fine dining. It's a U.S. city. All of these things all means there's an added value. And one thing that he was amazed to me was saying, Russell, you said, you know what, I was amazed. You've got some stores here that open 24 hours and some that open at midnight. Other places close early. So it's a big point in the favor. Because, again, there's an added value to it. But again, it's the thing that we need to do is we need to make them feel welcome. We need to feel them made welcome that not only, you know, we have Japanese tours, but we have now Chinese tours. And that's why the Chinese are investing on the koalina side, because maybe Waikiki has not been so much interesting to them. It's a little older. It needs improvement. And maybe, you know, they don't feel welcome in the Waikiki area. And I think it would be... So you're talking about Chinese investment to make a second Waikiki. That's a little grained up. Well, possibly. You know, because it takes a big overhaul in Waikiki. That's right. But, you know, it's good for that. It's good for white.  So I see it as a growing dynamic industry, but we need to quickly get on the curve. We need to get on this learning curve. We need to understand it. We need to learn culture. We need to make the fine-tuning changes that will make them welcome. First of all, the airport. Where are the signs in Chinese? Where's the language? Look in Tokyo Airport, all the language. All the signage is there. Even the airport bus that goes into the city. It's in Mandarin. They have Mandarin tapes. Again, these are the things. And, you know, remember the first and last impression of visitor gets to the airport. And one complaint I heard two of her presenters talk about is when they got the taxi, the taxi drivers were asking, that's not enough for a tip. How much do you give her a tip? And that's a black eye because they're not accustomed to that. Right. Well, again, education, going back to education, even for taxi drivers, people who greet the people at the airport, signage, language, cultural sensitivity, hot water at the hotel rooms. There's a whole list that goes on. And I think we have enough to go for another show. But at this point, unfortunately, we're out of time. And Russell, great to hear of your comments on the recent HTA conference. I think it is a seismic moment. But in order to move forward for Hawaii, we have to seize the moment. We thank you very much for Asian Review for Think Tech. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Aloha.


Good evening, and welcome to episode 335 of the Private Property Podcast. I'm your host, Uzaman Dunwoa Kumalo. It's the Tuesday edition of the Private Property Podcast, if you're one of us for the first time, welcome to the family. You are tuned into the only daily property podcast in South Africa, and we help you on all your property needs.  This is where you can get all of your property questions answered. And to all our regular viewers on Facebook, on Instagram, as well as on YouTube, welcome back. You know how we do? Every single weekday, you and I have an appointment where I'm always in conversation with a property expert who helps us navigate our property journey. And of course, it's always a great one to also share our own experiences because property is one of those things that's a team sport. If you want to go very, very far, you want to work with people. You want to make sure that you are in the know and certainly engaging with as many people as you can. And talking about engaging, I can already see the great engagement that we're getting on our Facebook page, saying evening Zamaambu, Lema Dona, also saying evening Zama Glaturinda's watching, Gossotru Melo's also watching. And of course, many of you are watching on our Facebook page. Do show us some love down there below. And of course, you know that on our Facebook page, we're running an incredible competition that started off with us setting the ambitious goal of wanting to reach one million followers on our Facebook page, which we have done. Thanks to you at home. And of course, we also set out to have 10,000 comments and shares in the in the post that we've pinned on our Facebook page. We've also exceeded that. And we're now taking up taking it up and not want to 20,000 comments. I don't know we can do this, right? If there are a million million of us now, it's over a million of us in this in this family. We know that we can certainly reach and exceed that 20k target that we have set out for ourselves and use the chance at home of walking away with 500 grand in cash when you participate. And all you have to do to claim the money is to be watching us live every single day halfway through the show. We're going to announce who the lucky winner is and you have until the end of the show to raise your hand in order to claim the prize. If the person doesn't claim the prize while we're still on, then it rolls over into the money bag for the following day. Now, yesterday, we had two winners. Unfortunately, only one semi-malatze whose birthday it also was claimed the prize. So this evening, we've got a thousand rands in the money bag. So if you know you've entered, you want to wait to see if we are going to call out your name. That's some of the so certainly some of what you can look forward to later on on the show. And of course, later on this evening, what you can look forward to as it is a Tuesday in Bali, Nongol, bringing you the farming podcast at 8 p.m. And you can also catch it every single Thursdays with the same show, where she always takes us through all things agriculture. You know, it is now spring, spring is sprung. I'm also doing quite a bit of gardening and growing my own veggie patch. As you've seen on my social media platforms, you can follow me there at Zaman Doma underscore K. So also getting great tips from Bali's show about how I can do a bit of job at it, especially because I want to be able to eat some of the food that I grow. So that certainly is a great show that I'm always plugged into. And of course, every Wednesdays is the class and Texas through the first time homebuyers show, which is always in conversation with people who've not only walked that first time homebuying journey, but have gone on to grow their property portfolios from strength to strength. And Mondays and Fridays, Chad hits us with an amazing, amazing preview of incredible properties that you can find on triple W dot private property dot co dot z a and they're so exquisite. Now, I often say that I wish I could do one of my shows in some of those properties. And I think we'll see. I think we must arrange maybe episode three, fifty, you know, have a small little dunyana in one of the great properties that Chad gets to see. But those are the great shows that you can find every single weekday at eight p.m. across private property, social media pages. And of course, do you follow us across our social media pages? We're on Twitter, on Facebook, we're linked in. We're on Instagram, we're on TikTok. If there's a social media platform, we are certainly there and catering to all of your property needs. And talking about those property needs that actually, you know, leads us to our conversation this evening, which I am very excited about because this is one of those things that I, you know, follow very closely. I, you know, part of my portfolio is some of the businesses I run have an interest in this particular topic. So I always love talking about it. And this evening, we're looking at why you should consider investing in student accommodation. And if you're in the student accommodation market, I want to find out from you. You know, are you an investor that's got whether one or more units in student accommodation? And if you don't, is it something that you're interested in? You know, what is it that you're still unclear about or wary of when it comes to student accommodation as part of your property portfolio? But to help us better get a good sense of, you know, what we should look out for. And even the state of student accommodation right now. I'm joined this evening by Liesl Brits, who's the head of Broken at Mid City Property Group. Liesl, good evening and thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much. Good evening, Liesl. I think one of the big things before we even look at, you know, do's and don'ts and tips for people who are looking to explore getting into student accommodation and some of the great reasons that I know that you're going to share. I think let's just look at an overview of, you know, the state of student accommodation, the state of student accommodation market in South Africa, especially in 2021. Given that we're in a pandemic year, I mean, I was even saying to you of air that I've spoken to quite a number of different landlords who have student accommodation units from last year, you know, even this year. And obviously they're all sharing their experience of how they've navigated lockdowns and having to, you know, students leaving. So currently, when we're looking at student accommodation markets, certainly from the area that I know that you're primarily in Pretoria, what would you say the state of the market is this year? Yeah, it's true that last year actually was really bad. And I think the biggest thing, the major damage that were caused to the market was the uncertainty. We were so uncertain on when and as fast we keep paying, we were so uncertain on when students would be returning. So that besides the financial damage that a lot of landlords have incurred due to that. But there are also some of the landlords that actually benefited from that, especially if you hadn't, if you haven't this far secretive building with your funding system installed. Most of those landlords actually collected those funding cards from the students and they were actually swiping while sitting, watching Netflix. So and they had empty buildings and they actually took the opportunity to upgrade their buildings and to actually take the time to make sure that the buildings are ready for the next intake. And I think what has happened with the academic year that was stretched up until end of March this year, if you didn't have the cash flow at the end of last year, it would have been very difficult for you. But this year, the academic year started in April and it's obviously ending in November.  But it is true that a lot of the landlords that have huge cash flow setbacks. But still, you know, for you to consider to get back into the market, we are still not very certain on what's going to happen next year. But what we do know is that the psychological damage for students and not only even just students, but any employee that are actually working from home now, the psychological damage that are caused or actually long term, so bad and all the institutions actually realise that it's impossible for a student to actually study from home without support, without fellow students around them. And if we just look at the circumstances that we have in institutions like TUT, those students are actually from rural backgrounds. They do not have electricity. They don't have Wi-Fi. It's not safe for them to actually sit with the laptop that they've been given granted from government. So they have to return back to campus. They have to come to these off-campus accommodation where they have Wi-Fi, where they have suitable accommodation with furniture and the support with transport to classes and that. So student accommodation will, I think, forever be very, very popular and in the month. And you know, Liza, I think one of the big things that and I love that you've highlighted is that in as much as a lot of the universities have moved to online learning because of COVID, we also know that students need an environment where they're able to learn.  It may be slightly different. And if anything, perhaps there might even be an instance where with certain universities, I mean, we haven't seen that yet. We might perhaps see that in the future where, you know, student enrollment figures increases because now it's no longer about, you know, having students physically come into class because capacity was often not only from a staff perspective, but also from a lecture theater has, you know, 500 seats. Therefore, you cannot suddenly enroll, for example, 1,500 students for a particular program. And I think with certain universities, I know they're even exploring, you know, some kind of hybrid model for the future where they can also increase the staff complement so that they're able to, you know, deal with the bigger volume of students who are potentially going to access their courses, meaning that we're still going to have a demand for beds because one of the things that we knew pre-COVID was that there simply weren't enough university beds in South Africa to cater for the number of students who needed them. And this was even with the, you know, residences, the university residences and, of course, the private residences. So there was still this huge gap that needed to be filled. And I know that, for example, the Department of Higher Education, you know, always emphasizes those specific numbers when we would have enrollment at the beginning of the year. So it really is one of those pressure issues that was a ticking time bomb in many ways because we always used to see the long queues with students requiring, you know, student accommodation. And it really is a crisis. I think if anything, what COVID has now allowed us to do is to also just get clear on the kinds of services we need to be providing to students, as you're saying, that, you know, it's about the environment, but it's also making sure that they have the right amenities for them to be able to work in the student accommodation versus, for example, if they are at home. I want to find out from you at home if you are in, you know, student accommodation. How was your student accommodation unit or units affected during COVID? And how did you recover? Because I think one of the great things is, of course, learning from each other and seeing what other people were doing. I know that there are some landlords who when students went out, they, you know, started taking in young professionals for a shorter period because students, you know, said, look, we're going home. We don't know what's happening. And with some university school was, you know, suspended for a little bit. And as these already pointed out, you know, the academic calendar kept being stretched and stretched and stretched. But we're also now getting used to, I'll say, life in COVID and having to adapt to it. And so making the decision around going into student accommodation becomes so crucial. So for people who are considering going into student accommodation because they're seeing the potential, they can see that, look, there's a shortage and there are properties on the market that are close to universities or university towns, as we call it. I think what would first just be the key thing that they need to bear in mind when it comes to student accommodation that would be different from if they were just doing a normal rental, let's say, to a young family or even a young professional. So I think on a smaller scale. And I always Brucey Timberwine's video for the chicken farm, where he actually coaches people that come to get funding is to start small. And I see that often when potential investors approach us that they actually want to jump with a really big buildings immediately. And it's actually very dangerous to start off with a massive building and try and besides the fact that the possibility for you to get funding on a massive building, a commercial building, it's actually good to start with a single residential flat and in a good building close to a university and just rent that out just to get into the industry to start learning about the behavior of students, the, you know, their needs and your, you know, the time tables, the fact that you only going to get income for 11 months, what do you do in your 12 month and some of the university only pays for 10 months. And there's often the uncertainty about you know, why do we get 11 months versus 10 months? Like you'd be normally students come in in fit and they live in November. So that's a 10 month cycle. Whereas with TUT, they always come in in January because they come from rural area. So they need time. So NISTAS actually also pays them on an 11 month cycle. So that's actually very beneficial for any investor to be paid of 11 months. So you've just got to like sacrifice that one month and then for the next year's intake. But like I've got my own properties as well. And you've got the choice to either furnish your properties for your students. The good thing about your single residential flat and taking on students on a small scale is you don't have to adhere to all the red tape that a larger building was, let's say, a hundred students or beds minimum. You the minute you get your building created for NISTAS, then obviously you've got to adhere to all the red tape. You've got to go through the accreditation process. You've got to pay all those fees. You've got to get Wi-Fi in your building. You've got to get security on each floor. And you have to have laundry, transport, all of that. So I've got clients that actually invest in three bedroom units and they place students like six ladies in a flat. They do pay the body corporate a little bit more for the extra water consumption, which I respect a lot. Because, in a sense, we see six adults or students occupying a three bedroom flat as overcrowding. So some of these investors are actually very good in terms of collecting an extra hundred grand for the water and pay that bird and pay that over to the body corporate. And then they furnish the properties. They put a washing machine, apparently, that's a big draw card for the lady, the female students. And they collect two and a half thousand grand per bed. So that's pushing the income. You're getting double what a normal in like my properties. I'll get six and a half, where if you put four students then or six students, you get triple that amount, which is actually good. So I'm starting on a small scale to just learn about students and how they behave and then specific needs are actually what I would advise people to do. And I think banks also like to see a portfolio with students that you can prove yourself as a very responsible investor. Instead of coming in trying to buy a building, housing 50 students or 100 students and taking a chance. Because this is not a Tatama chance type of industry. You've got to be a very risk free to the banks to consider you as an investor. But why would the bank take a chance on you? If they can maybe finance investor with very with a lot of experience with specifically student accommodation because it is a risky industry. Just as the investor himself would be a risk, but also with NASFAS and everything that has happened with COVID is an extreme risk to the banks now because they have their fingers with certain investors that could not carry themselves throughout this period. So we it's as if most investors are actually we are yearning to get our buildings accredited with NASFAS because it's less risky. But we see now, especially with your UP students, that that was not the case. That they've left the buildings, we've fled as landlords and, you know, the banks do not want to take that risk. So it's commercial properties where we used to be getting finance on a 70 percent loan to value. Now we are backing to get a 50 percent to loan to value. I am this evening in conversation with Lisa Britz was the head of Broking at Mid City Property Group. And we're looking at why you should consider investing in student accommodation. I want to find out from you at home if you're investing in student accommodation. How was it particularly or rather, how is it particularly now during COVID? And I mean, it's the second year of us living in COVID would have had an opportunity to somehow plan for more lockdowns and, you know, adjust the way that you're running your business relative to last year when, of course, hit us without any warning whatsoever. We're going to go for a quick break and see who the potential lucky winner of that one thousand rands this evening for our competition is. I hope they're watching so they can claim their prize and we'll come back. We'll certainly get to the questions, comments. I see all the love that you're showing us on our Facebook page. We'll get to those in just a moment. And the winner this evening goes to Vyasha Naidu. Vyasha Naidu, if you are watching, I hope you're watching. Drop us a message down here below to claim your money. A thousand rands is in the money bag. So you send a chance of walking away with that one thousand rands. That's Vyasha Naidu. If you are tuned in, then do make sure that you drop us a message in order to claim your prize. Now, I saw a few new names that gave us some love on our Facebook page earlier on. Adelene Bloom Pele is watching. Megan from Skalvake is also watching. Doomsa Asimanyi is watching. And of course, showing us love on our Facebook page. Refuelue Malibana. I see you there on Facebook. And of course, the regulars who is the range of pedagogy, as well as Colin Janssen, Fatima Simji and Dawaz Mbele. Also watching Keep The Love Coming. There on our Facebook page, we absolutely love seeing it. And of course, if you are in student accommodation, I want to hear your experience with the student accommodation market, especially this year, you know, have there been any adjustments that you needed to make to be able to essentially plan for the reality of operating in COVID and knowing that perhaps you may not have as much demand because there are still some students who potentially didn't want to come live in student accommodation places or parents who didn't want their kids to live in student accommodation places. Or you're one of those landlords, because I've also heard landlords saying, look, my place stayed 100 percent occupied.  So if you're one of those, what are you doing right? I think do share with the rest of us so that we can get those notes. Now, I think when we then look at and I love that you've highlighted this and I want to bring it up that if you're going or when you go into student accommodation, similarly really to any other kind of property, you know, class that you'll go for, you do want to start small. You don't want to start with the building that's suddenly going to have 50 beds and you're thinking, oh, I'm going to grow, you know, 200 K if I have 50 beds and I'll maybe net 180. These numbers look amazing in a year. I'll definitely be, you know, nearly a million because it doesn't work like that. I think anybody who who's managed even one unit understands the value of learning from that one unit. And it can be something as pedantic as putting in systems in place for that one unit maintenance for that one unit, managing that one unit and so on. So you don't want to bite off more than you can chew. And I think the fact that Lisa has even put out that banks are also now even more wary. So by the time you're wanting to look at 50 units, they do want to get a sense of, have you done this before? You know, they're not going to to extend that line of credit to somebody who hasn't even managed two students for instance. So you really do want to make sure that as you're navigating, wanting to add student accommodation or perhaps start off with student accommodation.  And now, Lisa, when we even look at biting off more than you can chew, I think one of the big things, of course, there is around finances. And I think people sometimes don't have a sense of how student accommodation can sometimes cost you slightly more in certain areas than perhaps, you know, a normal apartment that you might rent out to or even a normal house that you might rent out to a family or a professional. Perhaps just take us through what you should be budgeting for and how you should look at budgeting around when you have student accommodation units. Sure. Yeah, I mean, expenses on the one side is something where we just have to buy the bullet because with student accommodation, you've got the red tape and you've got all the list of requirements, especially if you're going to go specifically. And I'm having a lot on QUT specifically. I'm not even looking at UP at this stage because they have a lot of student rates available in Hatfield specifically in Pretoria. So I wouldn't say I wouldn't recommend to any newcomer to the industry to specifically go for Hatfield because Hatfield is actually saturated and we've seen a lot of the students or landlords bleeding there because of the fact that only 25% of the students at UP are actually funded by NASPAS. So that gives you an idea of 75% of those students actually went home and they're studying from home now. So we're not too sure if they're going to return next year. We can't have that guarantee. However, due to the psychological damage, we hope that they do return. But one thing that we do know is that 98% of the students of QUT are actually on NASPAS accreditation or they get the NASPAS grant. So they have to come back to the student accommodation and the rest of campus here in Pretoria. And we're talking about the areas Arcadia, Sunnyside, Central, Pretoria West. So we are quite certain that they definitely will return. So as I mentioned, you have to prove to the bank that you can actually you can sustain the student accommodation and that you will be able to recover and pay your bond. So expenses on the one side is something that we will have to do. So at QUT, it's expected from you as a landlord to provide transport, expected to provide Wi-Fi uncapped at a certain speed. It's you have to finish your apartments and you have to maintain that as well. It's not like you're buying a microwave and it's now there and you don't have to replace it. Students actually break things and students actually use things and they sleep on the beds and you'll have to replace beds. You'll have to pay your insurance. You'll have to, as I mentioned, the transport. So if you're not close to a bus rapid transit route or you can't piggyback on an existing route system, you'll have to get your own buses. You'll have to get insurance on those buses. So it actually accumulates. And we've done the calculation on these expenses. You've got to pay yourself for a minimum of 40 percent on that income. So at the moment, the income is 4,100 per student for 11 months. And you have to budget for a minimum of 40 percent on that. You have to provide electricity. You've got to provide water. You have to provide the laundry services. So we normally put measurements into our own buildings to prevent, you know, obviously, students that are going to abuse the system where they put in too many, you know, their friends come over for a shower. They cook there. They sleep there. So you've got to have a proper system where you control the access to your building. It's also a nice, local system for the university. So if a student is not blocking in at university, they will come back to you as a landlord to check if the student they've actually been to the building, what have they worn and lost. So you've got to have a CCTV system at your building as well for the safety of the students as well. So you've got a budget for at least 40 percent. So your expenses on the one side is one thing, but you can't afford to have vacancies in your building. So we often walk with investors through our own buildings to show them. And we actually tell them exactly what mistakes we've made. So we try and teach investors to not make the same mistakes and what to expect more or less in certain buildings, especially if you've got a mixture of students between different universities like your U.P. students don't want to mix with TUT students, whereas your TUT students wouldn't mind mixing with any other institution students. So you've got to prepare yourself for things like that as well. But just back to the vacancies, you cannot afford to have vacancies in your building and with any business, like if you think how many second hand called dealerships we've got, if you look at all the salons, we actually, the market will never be saturated with salons. But if there's a salon with a better offering of specials or a new product or a new service or whatever, we go for it. I think student accommodation is very sensitive in terms of location. So you'll funny enough find students that don't want to be close to the main TUT campus. They actually want to be in the bus in sunny side, closer to the clubs and that. So, you know, so you wouldn't. I would think that I would want to be close to the main campus where I study, however, the students actually prefer both. You'll have some students that prefer to go into a building with a lot of rules and regulations and other students actually want buildings where there are no rules and regulations. But you also have a failure rate in that specific building. But I think if you think about the needs of a student and I mean, I studied at TUT as well a long time ago and I was fortunate to study on campus. We had a house committee in our building. We had like a house mother and father, like a caretaker in the building. We were close on campus. We had sport activities. We had beauty pageants. We had socials. We had church outreach. Now, if you look at the student accommodation rest of campus, the private accommodation, they actually don't provide that. And if you want to stand out as a landlord, a very successful landlord without any vacancies, you have to look at what the students on campus are being offered and try and present that in your off-campus building. So if we just look at the connection with on-campus activities like your sport activities, you can maybe partner with other off-campus building landlords and say, let's form a soccer team amongst our buildings and we provide transport for those boys to go and compete with the on-campus rest soccer teams. Let's create a sobriety feeling in our buildings where we create this opportunity for them to actually have their art displayed on the walls. Let's provide a wall for them to take pictures of their social activities so that they create their own alumni so that they can come back in a few years' time and say, this is what we had. There's my picture. I belong to this family. You can actually be so creative because how I see the buildings, you have a building full of clients. Let's say you've got a building with 400 students. Those are actually clients that are potential car buyers. They are potential first-time bank account clients for a bank. They are potentially taking out a cell phone contract. So you can actually invite the service providers to your building, give them a nice space and a spot when the students are coming in with their Kazebo. They can present their products and services, but you want something as a landlord back from them. You're getting them that advertisement. So they can maybe for all our graduating students give us free cell phone or open a bank account with a 5000 round savings account for the bank. That is an amazing opportunity to catch that student at a young age. I still got my standard bank account that I opened at university. I continually remember I went to a Kazebo and I opened my bank account there. So it's a massive opportunity for service providers to benefit. But it's also for you as a landlord to benefit. Let's say you get Vodacom in. They can sponsor your students t-shirts and caps with your building's name printed on the back of the shirt and that your working advertisement on campus to ensure that the students are actually coming back. And they feel that they belong. They've got this pride that they're in a building with a nice name. So that's the first advice I would give as well. If you've got a big student accommodation building is change the name. Some of these buildings have the most boring building names and you can actually give them a nice name like Mazaputa or Majuba or something like that that's completely more relevant and painting different colors for you to stand out. And if you are planning on buying more than one building, give it a signature, change your signage and make it your signature like city property, all their buildings have the same signature outside. But cities buildings all have the name the edge. So we'll have flowers and festival edge and campus edge. So that makes you stand out as the landlord and you're actually attracting students to want to come and stay in your building. And I think, you know, one of the things is definitely clear, Liza, is that we're going to have you back on the show to look at student accommodation best practices and even to share some of the mistakes and learnings, I think, as you know, mid-city that you've picked up. You're saying earlier that this is something that you even do for investors who are keen on getting in the market, because one of the things that we also know about property is we want to all succeed, right? You want the different buildings in the block to also be fully occupied. You run well as opposed to being vacant and potentially end up being run down. And so really it is in everybody's best interest when, especially if we look at the university towns, when as different landlords, we are running our respective, you know, buildings or certainly accommodation units while and servicing our students well. I want to share a quick comment here coming through from saying on Facebook, saying I'm one of those running private student accommodation and last year and this year, it has been tough for us, but with the little number of students we are having it is better to keep our expenses covered till we can go back to normal life with with the number of COVID-19 declining and people getting vaccinated. We have hope for the next year, even though some TV colleges already saying they will only have two trimest semesters, that is only putting us in a very bad condition. And I think, you know, it is one of those things as a single without that a lot of the landlords are also just wanting to at the very least cover their faces. I think student accommodation, it was one of those areas of property where you enjoy very high yields. And I think for many years, landlords have typically have, you know, enjoyed higher yields. And now you're having to say, OK, let me at the very least cover my expenses just so I can stay afloat and weather essentially this COVID storm.  What what final tip would you give to somebody who's still considering potentially getting a student accommodation unit, particularly now? So they're probably obviously going to purchase it for we'll say for the next year, because it will probably only register of course later on in the year. So they've got their eyes set on, you know, owning that first student accommodation unit for the new year. What tip can you give to somebody who is still eyeing? So they're not in yet, but they're still considering getting into the student accommodation market. So I think if you if you if you want to go for the big buildings, if you've got the capacity to go for the big buildings, I think you definitely have to put in a lot of effort in your marketing because in the end, the student can still choose where they want to go and stay. And the intake is normally and we're expecting it to be in Fed next year as well. So you have already got to start now with your marketing campaigns to get your building out there. So if you're going to go for Miss Fossac accreditation, you the the TUT is actually starting opening up for accreditation now in October. So you must be prepared to have your building ready and to have your apartment, your markup apartment furnished so that when those accreditation can come out to do the accreditation and the inspection, you've got to be ready for that.  Because if you miss it this year, you've got to wait until the next year. So marketing is the major thing you've got to be out there. You've got to make sure that your gazebos are ready for January. When you when they sit there at TUT, you've got to have your online exposure, but that's with anything like that. If you don't, if you don't have an online presence on social media platforms and that you can't expect students to actually know about you, because your building, once it's accredited, will go on that. They've got a new website, T-R-E-S, T-R-E-S. And then there's the TUTech website as well, but T-R-E-S. This is a platform where students can actually comment on your building. They can complain about your building. And they can actually also compliment you as a landlord. So getting your building ready for that website and your social media platform to get the word of mouth out there. That's certainly one tip that I can give to all landlords out there when you start to get that fixed from the start. And network with people, network with the SRC, network with the different companies out there. If you're going to start in the industry, learn from whoever has done it, learn from their mistakes, not to burn your fingers, because student accommodation is actually so risky that it can wipe out your complete portfolio if you make mistakes. Because if you've got a big building and your building is not on the T-R-E-S website or something like that, you've got a 100% vacancy and that can flaw you as an investor. Start small and do your marketing. And I think that's such a great note to leave it on. Start small, learn, rather, pay your school fees with one or two units than, you know, buy two more than you can chew. And then paying, you know, the kind of tuition you absolutely might probably not even be able to recover from. Lisa, we're going to leave it this evening. I'm already, you know, calling it. We're definitely going to bring it back on the show later on this year because we want to be able to get a sense later on in the year on what people already are in student accommodation should be doing. I mean, you've already highlighted one is that you want to start marketing early. And I know already towards the tail end of the year, it's already a good place to start marketing as early as then because there are still students who want to confirm their accommodation before they actually, you know, go back home over the December period. And so not everybody is going to be searching for accommodation in January. Some actually want to have already viewed and decided before leaving. So later on in the year, we're definitely going to bring you back to get a sense of what we should be doing in the event where we have student accommodation units to get ready for the new financial year. What should we have in place? And if we don't have it in place now, what are some of the systems that we need to put in place? But for now, we're going to leave it there. Liesl, thank you so much for joining us on the show. Thank you, Zoma. Thanks for the opportunity. Good night. And that is Liesl Brits, who's the head of Broken Admit City Property Group, bringing us to the end of this evening's private property podcast with myself, Uzaman Dunwoa Kumalo. Now, the team has let me know that, unfortunately, the Asha Naidu has not claimed the prize, so it will be rolling over tomorrow to 1,500 rounds. Remember, if you know you've entered, you want to make sure that you're watching a slide because if you call your name, you have to drop us a text in order to claim that prize. Well, I've overstayed my welcome. You can, of course, look forward to Mbalinoa Go on The Farming Podcast at 8 p.m. I'll be back on your screens tomorrow at 7 p.m. Until then, hoping you're staying home and staying safe.


So by now, I'm sure that you know Kailin Jenner is running to be the governor of California and She's a pretty standard Republican right but one area where I think that people logically expected her to be a little bit better than her Republican colleagues is at least on some social issues LGBTQ rights in particular right because even if she's Generally pretty clueless even if she doesn't have the best instincts She's literally transgender. So you'd expect that at a minimum She'd at least be somewhat better than her Republican colleagues when it comes to transgender rights But that's not actually the case because she just endorsed a policy that harms trans youth and as AP reports Kailin Jenner the former Olympic champion and reality TV personality now running for California governor Said she opposes transgender girls competing in girls sports at school Jenner 1976 Decathlon Olympic gold medalist who came out as a transgender woman in 2015 told a TMZ reporter on Saturday that it's a question of fairness That's why I oppose a biological boys who are trans competing in girls sports in school It just isn't fair and we have to protect girls sports in our schools Jenner said Saturday during a brief interview in a Malibu parking lot So let me just reiterate that Katelyn Jenner a transgender woman supports an explicitly discriminatory policy against transgender people Yeah, and she actually took to Twitter to double down on this idiotic stance saying I didn't expect to get asked this on my Saturday morning coffee run, but I'm clear about where I stand It's an issue of fairness and we need to protect girls sports in our schools. This is basically a self-parody She's a self-hating transgender woman and For her she grew up with a lot of wealth a lot of privilege She didn't transition when she was young So she doesn't know what it's like to be a young transgender person in high school She doesn't know that struggle sure she struggled with her gender identity back when she was young But she doesn't know the way in which these bills unnecessarily Target trans students for no reason when this isn't actually an issue and Parkham Loy on Twitter had a really great threat Explaining just how stupid these types of policies are California is one of just a few states that have laws explicitly allowing trans students to participate in K through 12 school sports It went into effect in 2014 as you can see by the fact that girls sports have not been obliterated It's not actually an issue and yet this has been the law for years in California And there haven't been any legitimate complaints It's evidence that girl sports aren't actually under threat and that the rush to pass bills banning trans students from participating are Unnecessary at best. So obviously Republicans are trying to create a solution for a problem that doesn't actually exist But it's actually a little bit more nefarious than that because what they're trying to do is they're trying to create this wedge issue Since they can't appeal to voters with economic policies since they only support policies that benefit the rich What they're trying to do is Pray on trans people in order to score political points with unsuspecting people who don't know any better Who don't know a trans person so they don't know how these bills are discriminatory and how this isn't actually an issue It's truly morally reprehensible But this is exactly what you'd expect from a party that is morally bankrupt Now the West Virginia governor Jim Justice actually just signed a bill into law that bans trans females in high school from participating in school sports And when he was asked to provide a single example Where a trans student gained some sort of unfair competitive advantage as you're going to see he couldn't cite one Can you name one example of a transgender child trying to gain an unfair competitive advantage at a school there in West Virginia? Well, well Stephanie, I don't have that experience exactly to myself right now, but I will tell yourself your state Sir, can you give me one example of a transgender child trying to get an unfair advantage just one in your state?  Why would you take your time to do this? Let's talk about other things that I can give you examples of in your state According to US News and World Report West Virginia ranks 45th in education 47th in health care 48th on the economy and 50th in infrastructure if you cannot name one single example for me of a Child doing this. Why would you make this a priority? I just named four things that would seem to me like a much bigger priority Well, Stephanie, I didn't make it a priority. It wasn't my bill signed it I mean, it's just it's just come to me and I have absolutely signed it because I believe from the standpoint of a coach I believe that girls work so hard to obtain Title nine and I do not have any idea now why we are trying to Disadvantage them in participating in the sport that they put so much into I don't know why we're doing that This is not like it's a big priority to me. In fact, I think we only have 12 Stephanie listen, I think we only have 12 kids Maybe in our state that are are transgender type kids There's only like 12 kids who are trans in West Virginia So I better make sure I go out of my way to target them even more with this Unnecessary blatantly discriminatory transphobic bill makes sense, right? This is exactly what Caitlyn Jenner supports a Transgender woman so this goes without saying just because Caitlyn Jenner is transgender doesn't mean that she is a representative of the trans community or a representative for the average trans-american in The same way that Milo Yiannopoulos or Dave Rubin aren't representatives for gay men in America And speaking of Dave Rubin He seems pretty fond of Caitlyn Jenner Then Caitlyn Jenner who right now is running for governor of California and by the way Caitlyn's people we've reached out to you through every proper channel. I've tweeted a couple times I'll give you about a two-week window here to respond to us before I think that this thing's just like some sort of PR stunt Like I'll give you a fair interview and I hope we can do it And by the way as it stands right now, I support you Caitlyn Jenner because a anyone's better than Gavin Newsom But you've said some things that make some sense. So if you want to have an honest conversation completely unedited I won't bring any notes. I'm not trying to get you. Just want to hear what you think Please do respond. Hey Caitlyn, you know like me I really admire your willingness to attack your own community at the behest of a political party But I just can't support you if you don't respond within the next two weeks to come on my program So that's the deadline two weeks and I'm just gonna have to assume that you're not a serious actor and That you're just a grifter and trust me. I know something about grifting I can spot a grifter since I'm a grifter myself It's just embarrassing who bases their support on a politician on whether or not they come on your podcast That's delusional Actual I could think of one other person who does that but I mean at the end of the day The point is that Caitlyn Jenner even if she's transgender She is not a good representative for the trans community and if anything her visibility is hurting Transgender Americans because guess what? Republicans who are pushing these sorts of bills across the country now They're going to use Caitlyn Jenner as a defense for their discriminatory policies They'll point to her and say look even a transgender woman doesn't think that our policies are harmful or even discriminatory I mean all Caitlyn Jenner is doing here and what folks like Dave Rubin do is they just provide cover For the Republican Party give them permission to discriminate against marginalized communities You can call it now. We're equal.  I mean to be transphobic in and of itself is unacceptable It's unjustifiable, but to be transgender and enable this There's not just like a certain stupidity to this, but it's also uniquely nefarious Because Caitlyn Jenner should in theory know better She knows what it's like to live as a trans woman in America albeit a privileged rich trans woman, but still a trans woman But she doesn't care because politically this is the position that her party has taken So she's gonna you know a toe the party line It's truly disgusting and it's also really embarrassing and shameful I don't know how Caitlyn Jenner sleeps at night throwing her own community under a bus But nonetheless, um, I hope that you can live with yourself knowing that you are further hurting this community