Cape Town - The Western Cape’s political stability, good governance and booming economic opportunities are some of the reasons that the province is experiencing “semigration” in numbers, according to speakers of the Western Cape Property Development Forum’s (WCPDF) Annual conference held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC).
Dominique dHotman, chief strategy officer at Ooba Home Loans, said one can see in the number of units of transactions steadily increasing since the first quarter of 2019 that semigration is real in the Western Cape.
“In 2019, 14% of the transactions in the Western Cape were from buyers outside, now that is close to 24 and 25%. So that trend is upward sloping. You also see that other provinces also experience inbound migration.”
He said: “Right now, I think what we’re experiencing is that the Western Cape does certainly appear to be a much better-run municipality. Or a province, sorry, and obviously because there are many municipalities in the Western Cape and people are essentially voting with their feet and going to where they believe they will have better economic opportunities, better lifestyles and better futures for themselves and their families,” said dHotman.
He said politics played an important role in the property development industry and immigration.
“I think politics influences the administration. The administration influences the experience that people have in the municipality and the province. A well-run province, well-run cities, where there’s good governance, there’s municipal performance, service delivery, those things make a huge difference and people are coming to the Western Cape to live in a city where they get the services that they pay for,” he said.
DHotman also noted that black females are one of the biggest growing new property buyers in the province.
“This is not a new trend over the past five years. This is steadily growing, with black professionals, and families moving and into taking out bonds, moving up the property ladder. We are seeing those increases.”
Deon van Zyl, WCPDF chairperson, said: “People are streaming into the Western Cape. So we are seeing our unemployment levels are lower than the rest of the country. Our market is attractive, the perception is that governance is good, so we are attracting capital, capital leads to investment, investment leads to jobs, people are coming.”
He concluded: “What we are seeing at the moment, and I’m quite excited about it, we’re starting to see people spend money on their housing again, home improvement, we are seeing the civil contractors, the guys that are working on roads and the sewage infrastructure, those guys are incredibly busy. Everything that I’m seeing at the moment, assuming that things go well in the election, we’re about to see a property boom in South Africa.”
Cape Argus