PRETORIA - It is unlikely that there will be any dramatic improvement in the residential property market between now and the country’s general elections next year, says Pam Golding Property Group chief executive Andrew Golding.
“Hopefully, we get the election results the country needs in terms of boosting economic growth and that is then the catalyst to start a new positive up-cycle for the property market,” Golding said yesterday.
Golding said they had noticed a significant up-tick in the number of leads last month, but “whether that was a real up-tick or a dead cat bounce, we will have to see”.
He added that total national housing unit sales had been slowing since peaking in early 2015.
Golding said the total number of sales recorded in the first quarter of this year, the latest available data, declined by 16percent to 42275 homes and was 26.1percent below the units sold during the third quarter of 2014, the highest quarterly sales registered since 2010.
“That is the extent to which the market has declined,” he said.
Golding said 57.4percent of all new units sold in the first quarter of this year were freehold properties, followed by sectional title (22.5percent) and estates (19.4percent), with the balance residential farms.
He said there had been a slight decline in the number of new freehold properties coming to market but, despite ongoing demand for convenient, lock-up-and-go sectional title properties, freehold properties still remained by far the largest new property type being built.
However, Golding said Lightstone had reported that the number of South Africans buying freehold homes has been decreasing steadily, with the percentage of freehold properties sold declining from almost 90percent of all sales in 2003 to just over two-thirds this year.
Sectional title properties accounted for 8percent of total transactions in 2003, but this had risen to 22percent this year, he said.