South African Property Market Post Elections

In a recent interview with Chas Everitt Property group MD, Berry Everitt, post the General Elections this month on his opinion of the current state of affairs in the South African property market, he had the following to say:

"With the General Election behind us, I think we can look forward to improving business confidence and greater economic growth, both of which will be good for the residential property market.

One reason for my optimism is that the rand exchange rate has already improved substantially, which means that there is more confidence in South Africa among the foreign investors whose help we need to help create more employment, and also means that there will be less upward pressure on inflation and interest rates in the coming months.

Another positive, in my opinion, is the ANC’s stated intention of using its renewed mandate to focus on implementing the National Development Plan (NDP), and especially the infrastructure and industrialisation aspects that will aid job creation.

However, that does not mean that we can simply forget about incompetence and / or corruption when it comes to the management of public money, especially as this relates to service delivery. For the South African property market to thrive, our built environments must at the very least be clean and in good working order. And that means the ANC will need to focus on the details of government now as well as the NDP “big-picture”.

All residents – and ratepayers in particular - must be able to count on the water, sewerage and electricity networks at least being maintained if not expanded, and on the rubbish removal, road cleaning, public transport and other provincial or municipal services being rendered as promised.
If this is not the case, the value of existing properties will soon decline, as will new development activity, and the interest of foreign investors will wane rapidly again in the face of more service delivery protests and instability.

Meanwhile, the South African property market has maintained its forward momentum this year - if you are interested in some detailed market reports this month from Cape Town, Benoni in Gautengs East Rand, Amanzimtoti in KZN and East London in the Eastern Cape - areas where homes are currently selling remarkably quickly – click on the links above to get some detail.

Hopefully this will be the shape of things to come…"