Election result a boost for luxury property

The value of the rand is not the only thing that has strengthened this week in the wake of Cyril Ramaphosa’s win at the ANC elective conference – so has the confidence of SA’s luxury property buyers.

That’s the word from Rory O’Hagan, CEO of the Luxury Portfolio© division at Chas Everitt International, who says this is especially the case in Johannesburg, where the luxury property sector is dominated by South African and African buyers seeking primary residences or secondary homes that are used for business rather than holiday purposes.

“With the city being the financial capital of Africa, there is generally no real shortage of luxury buyers in Johannesburg, but they have been holding back over the past few months in the sense that they have been reluctant to spend more than about R10m to R15m, pending the outcome of the ANC conference.

“However, the orderly nature of the conference and the election of Mr Ramaphosa as the new ANC president seems to have broken the log-jam, and we have already received a flood of enquiries just in the past few days for homes in the R20m to R30m range.”

He says this outcome has clearly created renewed confidence in business circles that SA’s economy can be freed of corruption and turned around relatively rapidly, underlined by a report from rating agency Moody’s this week that Mr Ramaphosa’s election had created the possibility of a more “credit positive” shift in SA economic policy that could start to reverse the recent deterioration in the country’s investment outlook and help it to avoid any further downgrades.

“Such positive sentiment is always beneficial to the property market – and especially the luxury market in Johannesburg’s top suburbs and estates close to Sandton, which currently also happen to offer business buyers and investors excellent value for money. We thus expect that high-end sales in these areas will pick up strongly over the coming months, and that prices will firm and then start to rise.

“We also expect that the trickle of high net-worth buyers that we have seen moving back to Gauteng from Cape Town over the past year will turn into a steady stream as economic renewal continues and Johannesburg once again becomes a powerhouse of new opportunities.”  

On the other hand, O’Hagan says, international holiday home buyers and investors are expected to continue to favour Cape Town – although the city’s water problems and the stronger rand are likely to put a damper on prices there for the next few months.

“As we have already noted, some 2,3m people became dollar millionaires in the past year, taking the total number of millionaires in the world to 36m. And because of the weather, scenery and lifestyle on offer, Cape Town is one of the top 20 destinations in the world for such individuals to buy a second home – a position that we continue to promote as a member of the global Leading Real Estate Companies of the World© network.”

Issued by Chas Everitt Luxury Portfolio®

For more information contact

Rory O’Hagan on 083 328 8888

Or visit www.chaseveritt.co.za

*About Luxury Portfolio International®

Luxury Portfolio International (LuxuryPortfolio.com) is the luxury face of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World®, the biggest global network of premier independent property brokerages like Chas Everitt International. Luxury Portfolio International enjoys a global audience of some three-million affluent individuals in more than 200 countries, to whom it markets 50 000 ultra-luxury homes a year.

   Leading Real Estate Companies of the World (www.leadingre.com) brokerages facilitate more than one-million property transactions a year in 65 countries that are worth a total of more than US$350-billion.