Property Talk

Property Talk

Author: Andreas Wassenaar
Date: 2014-05-23

If there is one good reason to own a holiday home in KZN it is the month of May. Unmatched in terms of weather, we enjoy the best of the sunny mild conditions while the rest of the country starts to realize that winter is here. Selling a property in KZN in winter is possibly even better than summer and the seasonal aspect of marketing a home is a non-issue for us.

Our Seeff Dolphin Coast office is currently leading the sales race for KZN and is firmly positioned as a top ten Seeff branch nationally. We are enjoying the results of a surge in buying by people migrating into our area from Gauteng and Pretoria suburbs and from the suburbs to the south of Ballito as people make the decision to move northwards.

This is the natural path of expansion given that Umhlanga Ridge represents the new town center and business hub and the airport makes commuting convenient and a reality for many people living on the north coast. Prices in any market reflect a host of information and buying behavior. Tracking prices therefore becomes an essential part of monitoring our real estate market.

The commercial banks in South Africa provide the best statistics on home prices and it is often instructive to review the house price indices of the main banks to get a sense of current and expected future market activity. FNB's published house price index recorded year-on-year growth of 8% in April 2014 , slightly down on the 8.1% recorded in March 2014.

The growth figures for the preceding two months were 8.3% and 8.5% respectively. Once we adjust for CPI inflation the real house price growth is 1.93% for March, down from 2.3% in February 2014. Our inflation rate is currently 6.05%. House prices reflect the demand and supply of property. As demand increases and the supply is constrained to represented shortages in the market, prices react quickly to balance the supply with prevailing demand. Increases in prices therefore indicate improving market conditions and the current levels of year-on-year growth are the best we have seen since April 2008.

From August 2008 through November 2009 negative growth rates were recorded and the very slow and gradual improvement has only occurred since December 2009. The levels we now see are by far the best we have experienced over the past 6 years.

The economists are now pointing to slower rates of growth and warning that this could indicate a tighter property market in the second half of 2014. There are a few indicators supporting this view. The SARB leading business cycle indicator showed a -2,8% year-on-year decline, which as we know is incredibly closely correlated with mortgage extensions and property sales.

The number of insolvencies recorded has risen suggesting a mild deterioration in household sector credit health. New car sales are often quoted as a good leading indicator of general economic activity. The April 2014 sales volumes figures published by the national association of automobile manufacturers of South Africa fell by -10.6%.

So while there are warning signs on the horizon of potentially tougher times ahead, the property sales figures we are reporting are at an all time high. This activity therefore seems counter cyclical and subject to change. We see that on a national basis our average time that a property remains on the market has declined to 13.6 weeks (from 15.3 weeks in Q4 of 2013), that the percentage of properties sold at less than the asking price has decreased to 81% (from 85% in Q4 of 2013) and that the percentage of properties on the market for 3 months or more has declined sharply to 66% from 74% in the last quarter of 2013. These are significant improvements and point to a far more active property market.

For further information and an interactive analysis of this article follow my blog: andreaswassenaar.blogspot.com.

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