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The property market has had a bit of a rollercoaster year.

At the start of the year, things seemed to be looking up. From then on out, you may have noticed a sudden rush of headlines like Cape Town Property Experiencing Negative Growth, With More To Come, Bad News For Property Owners In Cape Town City Bowl, Southern Suburbs, Atlantic Seaboard and Cape Luxury Property Market: 20% – 50% Reductions Are Normal.

By August, the FNB House Price Index for the second quarter of 2019 warned that “house price growth in virtually all the upmarket sub-regions of the Cape Town metro [had] fallen deeper into deflation”.

I’m sorry to say the situation hasn’t improved.

Per IOL:

According to a property report released by Wesgro on Monday, the market activity in areas such as Green Point, Sea Point and the Waterfront have seen its sectional title markets slow down sharply. Properties in the Waterfront have registered the lowest number of sales in the past 10 years.

Carola Koblitz, who authored the report, used data from a variety of sources including the provincial government’s Treasury’s Municipal Economic Review and outlook (MERO) 2018, the South African Property Owners Association (Sapoa) quarterly assessment of various commercial nodes, Lightstone Property’s overview of residential markets, and rental and sales values as they periodically appear on Property24.

“Many people have been talking about the decline in the property market over the past year or two. What we discovered with this research is that an area, for example, like Green Point the values have declined more than over the past three years. They are not losing interest in the property market instead they are holding on to it.”

The property report also showed that the market activity in the City Bowl started slowing before the Atlantic Seaboard and areas in the Southern Suburbs.

Wesgro chief executive Tim Harris takes a slightly more positive view of the situation. He says that the thing to remember about property is that “it’s always somebody’s market”.

“While property in the Western Cape over the past few years has been extremely desirable, and prices rose quite steeply accordingly, recently we’ve begun to see a stabilisation – a normalisation, if you like. And that’s a good thing for investors right now, we believe,” Harris said.

For now, the high-end market continues to take a bit of a beating as houses sell, when they sell, for below market value.

There’s also less confidence when buying, as people are scared to invest in a property that might not increase in value.

Let the waiting game begin.

[source:iol]