Property Talk

Success is where you manage to find it

ABSA Bank's Residential Property Reports provide some interesting insights into the residential property market in South Africa and helps us to understand the bigger picture.

The neatly presented provincial composition of South Africa's residential property stock provides a fascinating overview of where the residential property market activity in the country is. When viewing the breakdown of the nine provinces by number of properties and by value it becomes patently clear that there are only three substantial areas that make up the bulk of our total residential stock.

It may be of interest to some that the total number of residential properties in South Africa is 6,7 million with an estimated value of R5,4 trillion. I found it interesting that of these homes 5,5 million are freehold homes outside of an estate, only 761,018 are sectional title properties outside of an estate and 436,976 are defined as estate properties (freehold or sectional title but within an estate).

Almost half a million South African residential homes are within estates indicating how rapidly this sector of the market has grown over the past decade.

Gauteng, as the smallest province, has the largest share of homes at 34,4% (and 38,6% in value). The Western Cape follows with 17,7% of the stock but as much as 27,6% by value indicating how much more expensive the overall stock of residential properties is in the Western Cape.

KZN is in third position with 13,2% of the stock but only 12,7% of the value showing the relative lower value of our overall stock in KZN. The Eastern Cape is in fourth position and has 10,4% of the stock by numbers but only 6,5% by value meaning lots of far cheaper properties.

The remaining five provinces bring up the rear with largely unimpressive contributions being the Free State with 7,7% (or 3,5% by value), Mpumalanga 5,7% (3,6% by value), North West with 5% (3,1% by value), Limpopo with 3,3% (2,3% by value) and then lastly the Northern Cape with 2,7% of the country's stock (1,3% by value).

If you are looking for affordable residential opportunities away from people then the Northern Cape is a great choice. Stargazing at Sutherland in the Karoo or admiring the largest collection of wind pumps in the country at Loeriesfontein in the Northern Cape means you can always find something of interest. As an estate agent reliant on trade of homes to generate income, the choice of where to ideally be based becomes immediately obvious from ABSA's report.

Gauteng absolutely dominates by volume, but the Western Cape has the most expensive residential homes in South Africa with the Atlantic Seaboard continuing to deliver. KZN is third and provides a great escape for weary Gauteng residents migrating to the KZN North Coast area seeking an improved quality of life for their families.

What I have realized however from witnessing superb performances of estate agents within the Seeff group from relatively small and non-descript areas is that the success is where you manage to find it.