With over 30 years of experience in the banking and home loan industry, my hope it is share what I have learnt over the years with my blogging community, inspire conversation around the subject and in the process discover unique insights into this ever changing environment.
Some property news from the latest FNB Property Barometers: Foreign buyers have declined. No rocket science here as the cost of buying has increased due to the Rand strength, particularly related to the British Pound. On the other hand, confidence in South Africa is declining. As regards 1st Time Homebuyers, their proportion of the total […]
The market remains strong and especially considering what’s going on. I guess the stable interest rates have a lot to do with that. Confidence, which frankly most of us probably suffer a lack of, seems still to be high enough to sustain home purchases. A discussion yesterday regarding a huge Joburg developer informed me […]
The best news thus far is the holding of the Repo rate at 7 %. We know the SARB could cut it but they are hamstrung by politics, none the least of it, being our own. The Rand is hanging in and we’re about to get a Fuel decrease. If I couple that with the […]
My customary property comment before continuing with the blog… I woke up this morning thinking about the Western Cape drought. The Cape property prices have bucked the trend, in my summary opinion, because “people want to live here”. However, if that is true, will people want to live here if we have no water? Cape […]
Before we get into the purpose of this blog, a quick word on the property market. Given the economic turmoil through which we have gone and which has been brought on by nothing less than Politics, the property market has been surprisingly resilient. Prices are subdued in the country other than Cape Town. This is […]
The FNB Property Barometer of 1 February 2017 is a real bundle of joy. It starts, “2017 starts on a very weak note with the FNB House Price Index narrowly avoiding year-on-year deflation.” It continues to report that “the FNB HPI for January 2017 rose by a mere 0.3% year-on-year having already been in month-by-month […]
If you asked for a word, I’d say: “Neutral”. Without all the detail in which I’m sure you’re well read by now, only one highlight stands out for property and that is the raising of the threshold for properties that are valued at R900 000 (from R750000 currently), or less which will not be liable […]
Sounds very formal but it isn’t. Property is often compared with other forms of investment and kind of comes out in the middle. Last year, for instance, and believe it or not, Bonds {not mortgage bonds but government bonds] were the best investment in the country with a return of over 15%. Between your unit […]
I’m sure you tire of me sometimes. So, as a direct copy which I don’t often do, I want to expose two articles for a re-read if you’ve seen them already. The credit therefore, belongs to the experts who are quoted and to FIN24 for bringing the news and views to us. John Loos talking about […]
You remember when we talked about 2020? Hindsight is 20/20……… 20/20 vision……… Space station 2020…….. I can remember saying that I would be 65 in 2020. When you’re in your Twenty’s that’s a seriously long time. Well, it’s almost upon us and we’re still here. But in the meantime, 2017 has its own interesting features […]