The year gone by for SA property: 5 ‘did you knows’
Research and analytics group Lightstone shares some interesting conversation ‘thought-starters’ and ‘did you knows’ based on a busy year in 2018 that was full of statistical discoveries.
Here are Lightstone’s top 5 for the property market:
1. Millennials: Hardest hit generation as first-time homeowners
Millennials - defined as individuals born between 1977 and 1994, are likely to spend 3.04 times more on their first-time home than the generation before them.
2. Women are acquiring their share of the property and auto market
Lightstone investigate how female ownership in the automotive and property market is on the increase.
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Moving house? Here are the insurance must-knows
Moving from one home to another can be a very stressful time involving plenty of admin and heavy lifting, decisions, packing, unpacking, the list goes on. “But there is one way to remove a little stress, and that is to make sure your goods are sufficiently insured while you are moving,” says Bertus Visser, Chief Executive of Distribution at PSG Insure.
Whether you are moving to another suburb or across the country, accidents can happen, and it would be dreadful to have to foot the bill yourself to replace your furniture and belongings. Here is what to consider when it comes to insurance:
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More protection on the cards for property buyers
The Property Practitioners Bill (PPB), which was recently passed in parliament is good news for future home buyers as it moves South Africa one step closer to regulating the conduct of estate agents, bond brokers, home inspectors, property managers and developers.
This is an area in which regulation was previously lacking in South Africa, says Sheldon Jennings, architect and founder of Archicheck, national property inspection firm that employs professional architects.
Jennings, who attended the stakeholder engagement session earlier this year along with representatives from Real Estate Business Owners of SA (REBOSA), the Banking Association of South Africa (BASA) and the South African Council for Property Valuers Profession (SACPVP) among others, says great strides were made towards ironing out flaws in the current system.
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Sale in execution property not always the ‘bargain’ you may think
The rise of home sales in execution has led to several potential investors asking whether these homes can be as good an investment as they appear to be, because in many cases they are discounted 20% to 30% - or more - on their apparent market value.
This is according to Rowan Alexander, Director of Alexander Swart Property, who says “it may come as a surprise to some that in nine cases out of ten I advise against this type of purchase.”
Why is that?
In South Africa, says Alexander, the perception for obvious reasons is that any sale in execution is likely to be a distressed sale – no other means having been found to dispose of the property. The buyer will, therefore, be in a position, it is believed, to gain an asset at a very low price.
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How to ‘take the pulse’ of your local property market when selling
When selling your home, it’s critical to ask your estate agent for information about the current market conditions in your specific area or community before you set an asking price.
"You need this in addition to a comparative market analysis (CMA), because no matter how detailed a CMA is, it can only show you what buyers in the area have already done. It does not tell you what is happening right now, whether activity in the market is heating up or cooling down, how many competing listings there are and at what rate homes for sale are being absorbed,” says Gerhard Kotzé, MD of the RealNet estate agency group.
“And this is vital information if you want to price your home, not only to generate maximum initial interest, but also to sell quickly for the most money possible. And it is knowledge that you can only get from an experienced agent who is hands-on and aware of the day-to-day shifts in their local market.”
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