After he was robbed at gunpoint in his Johannesburg home, Vincent Lyon packed his belongings and moved to St Francis Bay.
A property developer by profession, Lyon said he had moved there shortly after the fires that destroyed many homes in the area in 2012. He thought he could make a life for himself there and rebuild people’s homes in the process.
“I started my company from my office and for a good year and-a-half I struggled to get it off the ground.
“Locals from St Francis thought I was an opportunist who wanted to benefit from their loss, but I decided to buy one of the properties that was destroyed in the fire and I started rebuilding it so I could show them what I was capable of.”As he was rebuilding this house, Lyon said, people had approached him to build their homes and his business had grown from strength to strength.
Now the property developer is busy with a R28-million, 48-unit housing project in Humansdorp to curb the shortage of accommodation in the area.
“We’re situated between St Francis and Port Elizabeth and there’s not enough places where people can rent.”
The housing project, fullyfunded by the Lyon Group, will consist of two-bedroom and three-bedroom flats to rent.
“I saw the potential in the plot – it had been sitting vacant for years and so I decided to develop it,” Lyon said. The development had started in December and the first units would open next month, he said.