Cape Town’s Atlantic Seaboard is now in a buyers’ market phase, according to Seeff’s agents in the area.
The latest Propstats data shows that the sectional title sector of the market is down year-on-year by about 34% in value, and 41% in volume terms up to April.
The latest FNB Property Barometer also points to a weak Cape market and this is reflected in the Propstats figures.
Where the market generated almost R1 billion in sectional title sales by early April last year, it has only managed just over R600 million this year, said Ian Slot, MD for Seeff Atlantic seaboard & City Bowl.
The price gap has almost doubled from 5.4% to 10.2% with recent sales concluded at anything between 10.7% and 28.6% below the asking prices.
Time to sell
It now takes almost twice as long to sell a property with the time on the market stretching from 6 weeks last year to over 11 weeks.
According to Adrian Mauerberger and Cecily Sher, luxury sectional title specialists at Seeff, stock has increased notably, but sellers are still not motivated enough to drop their prices sufficiently to encourage buyers to put pen to paper.
A quick glance at Private Property shows that there are well over 1,200 sectional title property listings on the Atlantic seaboard while only 88 sales were recorded on Propstats for this year to early April.
The demand in the luxury sector is mostly in the R5 million – R10 million range according to Mauerberger and Sher who noted further that it is mostly own-use buyers looking to scale down.
Semigration demand has dropped significantly while this market has never really attracted foreign and investment buyers, Seeff said.
Right now, it is only sellers who are motivated enough to drop their price and ensure that their property offers more than others currently available at a lower price that will sell, added the agents
