DEMAND for residential property in Cape Town is higher than that of the national average, the second quarter FNB Estate Agent survey reveals.

Estate agents surveyed put demand in the city at 6.18 on a scale of one to 10, a second consecutive quarter increase. This was above the national average rating of 5.87.

"However, the survey may be hinting at 'seller optimism', keeping prices unrealistically high," Clinton Martle, FNB's Western Cape property leader sales manager, said in astatement.

When compared to the same quarter last year, demand activity rated 11% higher.

"This is the first time that we've seen positive year-on-year growth in the demand rating since the fourth quarter of 2010. This is also the highest demand rating since the first quarter of 2010," Martle said, adding there still appeared to be a lack of pricing realism.

Two of the indicators for pricing realism appeared to be moving in contradictory directions. One of them was the time a property spent on the market before it sold.

"The broad trend in this average has been an upward drift since early 2010, to a second quarter average time of 20 weeks," he said.

"This would appear strange at a time when agents perceive demand strength to have improved." Martle said the trend could be attributed to seller optimism.

This was reflected by a significant decline in the percentage of properties sold below asking price from 100% in the final quarter of 2011 to 80% in the second quarter of 2012.

"The apparent contradiction can perhaps only be explained by increased seller optimism, causing fewer sellers to drop their asking price because they are confident of achieving the price they want, and thereby causing the time on the market to remain long," Martle said. Also, the percentage by which sellers had to drop their asking price had not increased.

"However, despite improved confidence in the Western Cape residential market, we must not fool ourselves as to the extent of the financial frailty of many other households that still exists," said Martle.

This was best reflected in the estimated percentage of sellers selling to downscale, due to financial pressure. This segment stood at a high of 21% in the second quarter.

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Tue May 21 09:07:47 SAST 2013 ::

Jul 18, 2012

tpaz

Reserve Bank plus drop the interest rate.....for the BONDs installment to drop.
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Jul 18, 2012

CheeseBoy

@tpaz

I second that, I heard that there is a good chance they will so we can cross our fingers . I'm about to buy another property and could use a drop in interest rate myself
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