ECONOMY
Property market stabilising - FNB
Posted Wed, 25 Jan 2006
The South African property market was continuing to stabilise, with the market in previously disadvantaged areas showing signs of growth potential, First National Bank (FNB) said on Tuesday.
In its residential property barometer for the fourth quarter of last year, the bank said the steady growth in the property market experienced last year and the year before, continued to "level off".
There were many reasons for this levelling off, including the tendency of some sellers to continue to hold out for potentially unrealistic prices.
"Furthermore, real estate professionals believe that homeowners are continuing to monitor potential fluctuations to interest rate levels," the bank said.
FNB said 53 percent of sellers in metropolitan areas were not getting their asking prices for property. In townships, 94 percent of respondents believed that sellers were getting their asking prices.
"This could be attributed to the more realistic property prices
that are being asked in this market, together with the fact that demand is so high."
In the last quarter of last year, properties stayed on the market for an average of seven weeks, one week down from the third quarter statistics.
The FNB residential property barometer has measured property professionals' views on the property market for the past two years.
Property professionals working in previously disadvantaged areas, like Soweto and Tembisa, reported that the activity in these markets were higher than the fourth quarter of 2004.
This high level and optimistic outlook was attributed to high levels of demand.
Sapa
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