Sylvia Milosevic’s winning tips in The Property Game

Aside from their keen interest in the property market, The Property Game host ProVerb and mentor Sylvia Milosevic have one thing in common: Both advocate passionately for financial freedom.

As ProVerb told DStv’s #OhSnack team, “I believe in multiple streams of income. At any time, something should work (for me). While I'm chatting to you guys here, something needs to be sure to operate. And this is where my interest in property came. And this is why I love The Property Game, because we seek to empower.”

As the conversation around property ownership and achieving financial freedom continues to run hot, Sylvia took us behind the scenes of their show, The Property Game, to open up about what financial freedom means to her…

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Rising up

“I come from a family in a beautiful small township in Ga-Rankuwa in Pretoria. I come from a family of 5, where my father was the only breadwinner. He worked for BMW for 17 years of his life. We had a good life, and attended multi-racial schools when they were introduced. I went on vacations and never had to worry about money. Until one day my father came home, and he called for a meeting for the whole family. Something looked different about him on that day. And he said to us, ‘I've just been fired,’” reveals Sylvia.

“It was nine weeks before I finished my matric. I thought: ‘My goodness, my father is fired. He has no job, how are we going to survive? Am I even going to go to university?’ As he said that, I remember the terror on my mother's face, and she started crying. But nothing about the day prepared us for the next three years of unemployment. Days when we would go to bed on empty stomachs. It was painful.”

“The most painful part, and I think the transformational point of my life, was seeing my father. He wasn't a lazy man, he went out there looking for a job. But there was this one day, we were sitting down in the living room and my father just started crying. I had never seen my father cry. He apologised to us and apologised to my mom for failing us – that the one thing he felt he was supposed to do as a man, he failed to do, and that was to take care of his family. From that day on, he went into this deep, deep depression. He lost himself and he became alcoholic. For me growing up, my father was my role model, my superhero. Seeing him deteriorate scared me so much about ever relying on anyone else taking care of your finances, including a job. That was a turning moment of my life. How do you work 17 years of your life to watch, just like that, it be taken away from you? They had big plans. They never even saw it coming.”

“So at the age of 16, I promised myself that when I grow up, I would not rely on a job as a source of security, nor rely on anyone else to look after me,” says Sylvia. “And when I turned 21, they (my parents) bought me the book, Rich Dad Poor Dad (by Robert Kiyosaki and Sharon Lechter). And that's how I got introduced to property.”

Invest in yourself

With The Property Game, one of Sylvia and ProVerb’s main goals is to open the window and educate viewers about the possibilities for owning property and making money from it.

Sylvia hopes The Property Game will help viewers understand the possibilities in property investment, through seeing the different strategies that the property investors on the show use, and learning about their stories, too.

“You can only improve your life by getting exposure. Exposure is power,” says Sylvia. “By seeing what's happening out there, you’re looking at another woman who tells a story similar to yours, who has a similar background, who looks like you, who has dreams like you. And today, they're taking control of their lives. They're the movers and shakers and making a difference not only in their lives, but in their children's lives. They're not only just about creating passive income from property, they're building towards building wealth that they can leave as a legacy for their children. Exposure plays a huge, huge role. You can achieve something if you have seen what's out there.”

“And we teach something powerful: That you don't even need to have money to invest in property. You just need to have the knowledge. In episode 3, there's a beautiful, powerful young lady who’s investing in property without using a single cent of her money. She’s making money through her knowledge. She learned a skill set that lots of people do not have. She's able to go into partnerships with investors,” says Sylvia.

Never stop dreaming

Finally, while The Property Game focuses on using property as a source of passive income, we all love that fantasy aspect of houses, too. Asked about her no-financial-worries dream house, Sylvia replies, “I would have a spa, full on with jacuzzi relaxation area. That house should be somewhere on top of a cliff where I can have the best view of nature. It would be somewhere far away from Johannesburg, where there's just peace, tranquillity and relaxation. And just a place where one can fully be and rejuvenate. That would be my fantasy route, in that big house somewhere on top of the cliff.”

Watch The Property Game S1 Wednesdays on The Home Channel (DStv channel 176) at 20:30

The Home Channel is available on DStv Premium, Compact Plus, Compact, Family and Access. To get DStv, click here.