Michael Bauer, General Manager of IHFM, the Cape property management company and Managing Director of IHPC, the exclusive estate agents of Bardale Village, has drawn attention to the price analyses in the latest FNB report.
These, he said, confirm the generally accepted opinion that not only are Western Cape residential property prices the highest in South Africa but that, if measured on a square metre basis, they are particularly expensive in relation to other areas.
“This fact,” said Bauer, “becomes particularly evident in the sectional title sector where the Cape per metre square price last year was R10 341, 36% higher than that of South Africa as a whole (where the average price was R7 601).”
These high Cape sectional title prices, said Bauer, have come about as a result of the prevailing lack of land in the Greater Cape Town Metropolitan Area.
“What we are now witnessing,” he said, “is a scenario in which the value of sectional title and other property in the CBD continues to rise steadily because people can no longer accept the lengthy commuter times of up to two hours a day, nor are they prepared to pay the continually rising car maintenance and petrol costs which commuting generates.”
Bauer said that there are still no signs of this trend being reversed and CBD fringe sectional title units are, therefore, likely to continue to be an excellent property investment.
“There will always be those who want a freestanding home (preferably with a few square metres of grass and with some private space) and the type of property that is especially well suited to young couples with children is currently only affordable in developments like Bardale Village. However, it has to be accepted that when such homes are affordable in outlying areas, the travel costs can be expensive. For this reason many property investors are now increasingly moving towards sectional title in the high density urban areas and properties in the better positioned security estates in the suburbs.”
