2017 Looking good for Garden Route properties
It’s almost the end of the year, which is generally about the time that South Africa’s property “experts” come out of their shell, gaze into their crystal balls and tell us what to expect in the property market next year. The only thing most of these property people have in common is that they are all guessing. Predicating the future is not easy in any industry, if it was, we would all be millionaires, but property does have a lot of data from years gone by, as well as from this year, to allow us to at least make some kind of informed speculation for want of a better word.
With most of the world still struggling with an ongoing global recession, South Africa is no different. Add to that our lack of political stability caused by poor leadership, and it’s no wonder that our economic growth is stagnant. But South Africa has a huge economic divide, often resulting in two very different property markets. There is the upmarket, the very upmarket and everything else. The very upmarket seems to have had a golden run of late, particularly in the Western Cape. The weak rand has also resulted in property becoming very attractive to those foreigners with favourable currencies.
Predictions are that this will continue in the foreseeable future. The news for those in the middle to lower end of the property market, will probably not enjoy as much of a boom as the top end, as salaries struggle to keep up with inflation. Many people are struggling to qualify for mortgage bonds, especially with many lenders still jittery after the 2008 credit crisis.
As usual, we prefer data and stats to speculation, so we’ll take look at some stats from Plettenberg and surrounds to make our crystal ball just that much clearer,
We take a look at Plettenberg Bay sales for the first half of 2016 compared to the same period in 2015
The data shows that in 2016 there were 100 sectional title sales in PB compared to 86 the year before. In addition, there were 170 freehold sales, compared to 147 the previous year. This shows an increase of 16 and 15.7 % respectively, as a healthy overall picture of the local property market starts to emerge, bucking the gloomy trend of much of the rest of the country.
Points of interest
Price
Lightstone, the property data guru tells us that the average time that properties are on the market in Plett is 8.5 months – the highest in the Garden Route region. It also tells us that the percentage difference between the listing and selling price of properties in Plett is 15.62% - also the highest in the Garden Route region.
Helen Melon Properties
While we have had a good year to date, we have a number of buyers looking to purchase properties in the R4m and above bracket, but they are struggling to sell their properties either in Gauteng or KZN, and when they do, the price achieved is well below listing price. Many newspapers articles have been attesting to the fact that the Western Cape is in a property bubble all of its own, and often completely unaffected by what goes on in the other provinces. This seems to be true.
What we do say at HMP, is that we live in a fantastic part of the country, and property continues to see year-on-year growth, with many people seeing excellent growth in the value of their properties. One of the reasons is that when people settle in this part of the world - they never want to leave.
*Suburbs used in comparison:
Barons View, Bowtie, Brackenridge, Cutty Sark, Goose Valley, Harkerville, Keurboomstrand, Lower Central, Lower Robberg, Plettenberg Bay, Poortjies, Piesang Valley, River Club, Robberg Ridge, Schoongezicht, Sea Side Longships, Signal Hill, The Crags, Upper Central, Upper Robberg, Whale Rock, Wittedrift, Bitou Nu
*Statistics for actual sales do not include transfers for no value, i.e. deceased estates, transfers from entities or natural person, etc.