E-conveyancing will mean more competition, inquiry told
The Adviser - Australia
An emerging mortgage technology has been hailed as a way for smaller lenders to “capture a greater share of the market” from the big four. Electronic conveyancing will significantly reduce the cost and time of the mortgage process, according to PEXA, the government agency that is overseeing the rollout of a national system.
PEXA told the Financial System Inquiry that e-conveyancing would allow unencumbered property purchases with available funds to be settled “within days rather than months”. It also estimated that the conveyancing costs associated with buying or selling a property would fall by $120 to $150 per transaction.
PEXA said e-conveyancing would boost mortgage competition by reducing any scale-cost advantages that the major banks have in processing mortgages.
The Adviser
At expiry, a property lease changes
IolProperty - South Africa
When a tenant continues to occupy the dwelling after the fixed period lease ends, the occupation becomes a monthly periodic lease. Section 5 of the Rental Housing Act 50 of 1999 relates to the provisions of leases and subsection 5 deals with an expired lease.
According to this paragraph, if the tenant remains in the dwelling, with the express or tacit consent of the landlord, a periodic lease is created. In the absence of a further written lease, parties are bound by the same terms and conditions of the expired lease, except that at least one month's written notice must be given of the intention to terminate the lease.
What would be the tenancy period if parties begin to negotiate a new lease after the fixed lease expired? Let us take the case where a fixed lease had ended and parties begin to negotiate a lease for a period of five years. During negotiations, a new lease is presented to the tenant for his signature, who signs the lease but alters the section dealing with security deposit.
IolProperty
Selling a home can require many days of preparation so that it is 'staged' right - but this effort is always worthwhile
Rawson - South Africa
The average home seller, says Nancy Todd, co-franchisee for the Rawson Property Group’s Constantia franchise, may believe that simply tidying up their home and pricing it slightly above what they actually expect to get, will result in them getting the price that they want. In 99% of cases, this does not work effectively. “If you want to get the best possible price for your home,” says Todd, “it will pay handsomely to work hard to present your home in its best light.”
In order to do this, she says, there are a number of boxes to tick while adopting the mind-set of a potential home buyer. Firstly, approach your home from the road and keep an eye out for anything that you think you could do to make it more inviting, i.e. trimming hedges and painting walls or the front door or planting annuals and mulching flower beds.
Two of the most common deterrents for buyers are clutter and bad odours. These two things make it hard for buyers to imagine themselves living in the home, and the seller can easily overlook these because they have become accustomed to them — perhaps they have children who accumulate clutter or an animal whose scent they take for granted.
Rawson
Residential building statistics
Absa - South Africa
Strongly growing planning phase of residential building activity, whereas construction phase is contracting compared with year ago
The month of July 2014 saw the planning phase of residential of building activity in the South African market for new housing showing strong growth on a year-on-year basis, as reflected by the number of building plans approved by local government authorities. However, the construction phase, i.e. housing reported as completed, showed a further contraction in July from a year ago, although the pace of contraction has slowed down significantly from previous months. These trends in private sector-financed residential building activity are from data published by Statistics South Africa.
The number of new housing units for which building plans were approved by local government institutions was up by a massive 41,9% year-on-year (y/y) in July this year, which contributed to the growth of 14,1% y/y in the seven-month period to a cumulative total of 33 455 units. This was 4 125 units more than in the first seven months of last year. The continued improvement in levels of activity in the planning is expected to be reflected in a higher level of construction in due course.
The construction phase of new housing, i.e. the number of new units reported as completed, contracted for the fourth consecutive month in July, by 6,8% y/y. with all categories of housing showing lower levels of completion compared with the corresponding period last year. New housing construction activity was down by 3 875 units to 20 599 in the period January to July from 24 474 units in the corresponding period last year.
Building stats Jul 2014
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