Joburg billing crisis 'worse than thought'
South Africa - IolProperty
There is a billing crisis in the City of Joburg - and it is worse than initially thought.
These are the words of the member of the mayoral committee (MMC) responsible for finance, Rabelani Dagada, who confirmed to The Star that the city was still receiving about 15 000 new complaints each month.
As at March 17, there were 44 000 queries being dealt with.
"This number is increasing because of constant estimations of consumption, which are often thumb-sucked by meter readers," Dagada said.
"It was embarrassing to write off R8 billion debt two years ago which was said to be non-traceable, but which could have been traced. It is not necessarily corruption - it could be that the data is incorrect," he said.
IolProperty
New LexisNexis office to boost PE as tech hub
South Africa - BizCommunity
Global content and technology solutions provider, LexisNexis South Africa, is officially opening a new office in Port Elizabeth.
With PE being described as a fast-rising software development city in the Eastern Cape province, the new outlet includes a software development centre through which LexisNexis intends to tap into the province’s burgeoning computer science and information technology graduate base.
Head of production, Peter Raine, said the establishment of the office in the promising suburb of Humewood followed LexisNexis’ acquisition of Korbitec in November 2015.
“What was largely a Korbitec sales operation in Port Elizabeth has now been expanded significantly to include a strong focus on software development. This is in line with one of the company’s core values of innovation, which sees us strive to deliver tomorrow’s software solutions, today, in line with advances in technology,” he said.
BizCommunity
Dealing with damage at a rental property
South Africa - PayProp
It's interesting how model rental property tenants often morph into nightmare tenants when they move out. Sadly, the combination of damage left to the property with unpaid utility bills and rent is often enough to completely wipe out any returns the owner might have hoped to make for the year.
PayProp CEO Louw Liebenberg says that most damage cases arise as a result of tenants leaving the property earlier than the lease-period.
In addition, in most cases, the damage is accompanied by non-payment of the last month’s rent.
"This kind of situation is the sad reality of managing a portfolio of rental properties -but the good news is that there are ways to avoid landing up in this predicament," says Liebenberg.
Dealing with damage at a rental property
Residential Property Barometer
South Africa - FNB
The FNB House Price Index’s year-on-year growth rate strengthens further, but is still in negative real territory
In April 2017, the FNB House Price Index showed some further acceleration in year-on-year growth compared with the March rate, after having gone through a “dip” late in 2016.
This remains in line with recent signals of renewed strengthening in the economy. The key risk, however, remains how recent policy developments, including a major cabinet reshuffle and subsequent ratings downgrades, play out on sentiment within the Household Sector and thus the housing market. However, at this stage it is too early to tell from the April house price data.
Residential Property Barometer - April 2017
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