Creating a masterpiece
Cape Town CCID With a residential population of an estimated 6 000, and a rising nighttime economy, the Cape Town Central City has become South Africa’s most vibrant and successful CBD. This is the story of how the Central City Improvement District (CCID) and its partners helped revitalise an area once battling with urban decay.
Safe, clean, vibrant streets; restaurants and shops galore; almost 50 educational institutions; renowned museums and family-friendly public spaces: we have all the ingredients of a thriving downtown district. But this wasn’t always the case: the Cape Town Central City was a dreary place 15 years ago. An area known for its history and colourful tradition had become lawless and dirty, which is hard to imagine now given that the Mother City’s CBD is considered by many to be the safest and cleanest in South Africa.
The Cape Town CCID’s COO, Tasso Evangelinos, remembers: “In the late 1990s, images relating to the Cape Town Central City that appeared in the press were frequently filtered through a black and white lens. These dramatic photos of litter, graffiti and antisocial behaviour were a sign of those times, and an alliance of CBD stakeholders at the time used similar imagery in presenting its case for a city improvement district to be established in town.”
Cape Town CCID
Most agents don't check vendor-neighbour disputes" - claim
EstateAgentToday - UK
An insurance company claims that around 60 per cent of estate agents do not check with their vendor clients about disputes with neighbours, for fear of having pricing or sale difficulties if conflicts are revealed to buyers.
During the summer Churchill Insurance interviewed 116 estate agents across England, Scotland and Wales - a very small sample - but claims only 40 per cent actively ask vendors about issues with their neighbours.
The firm also alleges that 10 per cent of agents rely solely on the purchasers’ solicitor or conveyancer to investigate existing issues with neighbours.
EstateAgentToday
Former township property price growth slows
IolProperty - South Africa
House price growth in the areas previously classified as black townships has slowed but is still much higher than in the former white suburban areas.
FNB Home Loans household and property sector strategist John Loos said yesterday the FNB house price index for the previously black township areas in the six major metro regions rose by 10.7 percent year on year in the third quarter.
Loos said this house price growth was still strong although it was slightly lower than the 12.3 percent revised growth rate for these areas in the second quarter. It also remained much higher than the overall house price growth rate of 5.4 percent for the overall major metro regions, which include Ethekwini, Cape Town, Nelson Mandela Bay, Ekurhuleni, Johannesburg and Tshwane.
Loos said the townships had experienced faster house price inflation than the suburbs in recent times, but FNB estimated the townships' house market had experienced cumulative house price inflation over the past 15 years. He said house prices in the suburbs had increased cumulatively by 515 percent since the first quarter of 1999 compared with 390 percent for the township areas.
IolProperty
Housing Review 4th Quarter
Absa - South Africa
The property market
The residential property market will continue to be driven by factors related to the economy, household finances and consumer confidence. These factors will affect the affordability of housing and the accessibility of and demand for mortgage finance. Property market conditions will be reflected in levels of property demand and supply, residential building activity, property prices, buying patterns, transaction volumes and growth in mortgage advances.
House price growth has been on a steady downward trend since late 2014 and is forecast to remain in the single digits for the rest of the year and in 2016. Lower price growth is forecast for 2015 and 2016 compared with the previous two years, mainly as a result of trends in and the outlook for key macroeconomic and household sectorrelated factors. In view of expectations for nominal house price growth and consumer price inflation, low real price inflation is projected for this year, with prices to remain virtually flat in real terms in 2016.
The value of outstanding household mortgage balances is forecast to continue to record low single-digit growth over the next 12 months, affected by expected trends in interest rates, the state of household finances and consumer confidence.
Levels of residential building activity have remained subdued for the past 6 years against the background of developments on the fronts of the economy, household sector and building confidence. These and other key factors such as the availability of suitable development land, building costs, the process of property rezoning, the availability of municipal services and the extent of the planning and construction phases will eventually affect the demand for and supply of new housing, as well as the timing and timespan of building activity. Building confidence will be a function of the abovementioned factors and trends related to the economy, the household sector and the property market in general.
Housing Review 2015 Q4
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