SA Home Values Keep Rising

On the home front, some statistics just released by property data company Lightstone and Absa shed some very interesting – and unfiltered – light on property values in SA, and how these have changed over the past year.

The statistics cover urban residential properties and exclude housing on farms and smallholdings, and they show that SA currently has a total of about 6,1m homes, or about 63 000 more than at this time last year. 

The total value of the country’s urban homes is around R4,3bn, compared to around R4,05bn last year. What is more, although only 2,1m (34,5%) of the 6,1m units are registered as being bonded, they account for 52,5% of the total value.

A further breakdown of the Lightstone figures reveals that about 1,48m of the bonded properties are freehold homes in traditional suburbs and townships, and are valued at a total of around R1,5bn – or just over R1m each, on average.

Some 429 000 of the bonded properties are sectional title units, currently valued at an average of R872 000 each, and almost 200 000 of the bonded properties are a mixture of stands, freehold homes and sectional title units located in security estates.

The statistics, published in the latest Absa Housing Review, also show that the average growth in the value of freehold homes over the past year was 6,5%, while that of sectional title homes was 6%.  

Residential property transactions in East London have picked up speed in the past few months thanks to an improvement in stock availability and more bond applications being granted.