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It looks like Russians are keeping property from Cape Town’s Atlantic Seaboard on their radar.

In fact, this year has seen the highest surge in Russian interest in property in some of our country’s most luxurious areas.

Because European countries have suspended visa issuance and restricted immigration rules for Russian citizens since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it makes sense that they’re rushing to our shores, where the rules seem to hardly apply (and Putin may get away with all hell).

The exchange rate is also doing all the favours for foreign investors and buyers in our country, which means people from the UK and Northern European countries like Germany are also looking to invest in property on the Atlantic Seaboard.

Ross Levin, a licensee for Seeff Atlantic Seaboard and City Bowl, told News24 that the uptick in Russian buyers is remarkable, citing a Russian buyer who recently invested more than R70 million in a property in Fresnaye on the slopes of Signal Hill:

“We are seeing enquiries in the R10 million to R20 million price bracket too,” says Levin. “Russian buyers are specifically drawn to suburbs such as Camps Bay, Fresnaye, and the Waterfront.”

Levin said they obviously see property on the Atlantic Seaboard as a good investment:

“Despite the economic and interest rate challenges, there has, for example, already been over R1 billion in sales above R20 million this year, including several sales to UK, German and French buyers, in addition to the sales made to Russian buyers,” says Levin.

An anonymous representative of another large property agency also told News24 that a couple of properties in Hout Bay recently sold to Russian buyers, while other property stats point to the same:

Statistics from March 2022 to April 2023 show that 23% of RE/MAX’s sold listings on the Atlantic Seaboard in Cape Town were sold to foreign buyers and 21% of its sold listings in Cape Town’s City Bowl were sold to foreign buyers.

“This is a big jump from 2020 and it has steadily increased since then. Most foreign buyers are from Europe with the largest number of those being from Germany. In addition, we have significant numbers buying from America and the UK,” says Susan Watts, broker-owner of RE/MAX Living.

Interestingly, it is noted that these buyers pay in cash as they are basically semigrating from other parts of South Africa, selling their homes in Gauteng, the Eastern Cape, and KwaZulu-Natal, to rather buy in the Cape Town area.

Must be nice to have property here to allow for an all-year summer and then escape North when the big SA problems hit, like the electricity crisis or the water crisis or the cost of living crisis.

[source:news24]