The Facts Not The Hype
February, March & April
Now’s The Timefor the Hype
Hey, for sure you know that there are a lot of negatives to write about. Yet, we all also know that for every negative, there is a positive to off set it.
Remember the adage: Be a buyer when everyone else is selling and a seller when everyone else is buying.
Well, now’s that time to be the buyer!
You probably also know that other adage that by the time you’ve read about how bad the market is in the newspaper, the market is about on the way to turning around and being a great market. Of course, you knew that I‘ve just made that adage up!
That’s because, market sentiment and optimism are fundamental to having a good property market.
And once the leading spokespersons of our industry have started to acknowledge a downturn, they’ve then admitted that the momentum is in that direction. Usually, they used to only tell us that we’ve had a bad market, after the market has gotten better when these spokespersons’ would tell you how great the market is now compared to last year.
But it is reflective of the current difficult times and times ahead and the hard choices to be made by all of us. For example, how do we cut down on our power usage as the government wants us to do by 20%. Will we only buy or make microwave food, which saves much more than using the oven or an electric hob.
Truthfully, I much preferred the water shortage, when the government asked us to shower together to save water.
Okay, the government didn’t actually ask us to shower together, but I did proclaim that as one of the best ways to save water and to have clean sex.
And now with the price of petrol at an all time high, interest rates higher than they’ve been in many years, consumer prices rising everyday, many of us will have to reduce our spending. My method is that I do, not read any advertising.
I kinda believe that the purpose of advertising is to convince us to buy something new, when the product we already had was perfect until we read the advert. So, I feel that the way to cut down our spending is not to read any adverts (of course, property adverts are excluded from this admonition) and then to avoid shopping on those days which a “y’ in their name.
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Now, aren’t those simple rules to live buy, oops, you see how “buy” just pervades out thoughts.
If you can do that, I promise that you will have plenty of money left over at the end of each month.
Just the Facts, Please
For each of the past six months, apartment and house sales have either been marginally the same as the prior year or significantly less than the prior year.
And now for the first two months of the year, the sales are down by 43% for apartments and 40% for houses.
What a great time for a buyer and what sorry times for those who really need to sell!
Yet, the average price of a house increased by 25% for 2007 over 2006. The average price pad for a house on the Atlantic Seaboard last year was R5.9 million compared to R4.7 million the year before.
The average price for an apartment during 2007 was R3.8 million compared to R2.7 million. Thus, there was 41% increase for apartments.
The median price of an apartment rose from R1,2 million to R1,5 million or 25%
So, despite a dramatic slowdown in the number of sales, prices continue to escalate. |