foreign frenzy for sa property
26 January 2006

Johannesburg - Coastal property sales from the West Coast to Knysna this festive season wiped out all signs of a cooling property market.
Property sales along the Atlantic Seaboard were especially characterised by foreign interest.

Seeff Property's Heinrich Koorts says the company's turnover in December last year almost doubled compared with the same month the year before. He says the West Coast market is flourishing and the company receives up to ten internet queries a day.

"Increasingly more people query properties of more than R2m and also buy in this price range. This is good news, because it means many more people now see the West Coast as a long term investment and not only for leisure and short term investments."

In Knysna, the growth in property prices on an annual basis in December was a phenomenal 513%, according to Seeff Knysna's Coen Bezuidenhout.  He says the demand for property in the Thesen Island development has picked up considerably and choice properties did extremely well.

Pam Golding Properties (PGP) says its Atlantic Seaboard office closed several transactions in the last two months, including for property of more than R20m. Buyers were from Britain, Scandinavia, the US and Russia.

According to Laurie Wener, PGP director and coastal manager, the demand from buyers exceeded supply. It was especially the case at the V&A Waterfront, where property stock is dwindling.   "Recent sales there include a penthouse of 308m² which were sold for R7.3m to a Brit and an apartment which went for R6.1m to a buyer from Dubai.

Other significant sales were recorded in Camps Bay, where six out of eight properties which were sold in December fetched more than R6m. Three of these properties went to foreign buyers - from Europe, Scotland and Norway.

Sales at Century City also fared well.   Alan Usher, managing director of Property World, the agents for Century City, says a total of 139 houses and units in four developments of the Rabie Group were sold from June to December.

The total value of sales in this period amounted to R168.2m.

Elma Kloppers, www.news24.com