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Property Market Review - 26 February 2009
PrivateProperty.co.za - South Africa
There's blood on floor in the residential property market and if the pundits are to be believed, more will be spilt before the year is out, even if the interest rate drops.

It's scary stuff, but in the words of one veteran estate agent: "When there's greed in the market, be fearful. When there's fear in the market, be greedy. My advice is: buy now."

For most people the talk of securing a market steal is academic: they barely have enough money to pay the bills, let alone service another bond. But for those who have cash, there will be bargains to be had soon. The longer you can hold out towards the end of the year, the better the buy, experts say.

Carmen Altenkirch, an economist with Nedbank, explains how dire the situation is for many people. Stats SA released insolvency and liquidation statistics this week and revealed how many households were bankrupt. "There has been a steady increase this year and we expect this to continue until 2010".
PrivateProperty.co.za

Negative equity hammers Cape home-owners
RealEstateweb.co.za - South Africa
Prices have plummeted far more than the banks suggest in middle-class Cape Town's southern suburbs.

Eighteen months ago the average price of a home in Grassy Park was R700 000 to R950 000 with the best homes selling at about R980 000.

Today every one of these homes and those of the related suburbs has dropped in value by between R100 000 and R150 000.

Sellers, many of whom have been forced by the tight economic times to put their homes on the market, have found the value drops very difficult to accept and those who bought in the last three years often find themselves with "negative equity" in their property - that is, not being able to cover the outstanding bond from the value received from the sale of their property.
RealEstateWeb.co.za

Paid referrals distort market in conveyancing
The Australian - Australia
The Queensland Government should ignore self-interested calls to end the monopoly of solicitors over conveyancing in that state.
Monopoly is a misnomer. How can a profession in which practitioners operate on a competitive, and even adversarial, basis be called a monopoly? The fact that a person must have certain qualifications to practice does not, of itself, mean a monopoly exists.

In Victoria, conveyancers claim that the Conveyancers Act 2006 broke the lawyers' conveyancing monopoly in that state. It did no such thing.
The Australian