Extensive residential and commercial development in Protea Glen has made the area very popular among young Soweto buyers keen to get on to the property ladder.
“Protea Glen, which is on the south-west side of Soweto, now has its own shopping mall with two supermarkets and outlets of many national clothing and food chains, several big discount stores like Cashbuild and the new Builders’ Superstore, and its own medical clinic, fire station and police station,” says Kena Kekana, owner of the Rawson Property Group franchise in Soweto.
“It has grown very rapidly over the past few years and there are still many new housing developments being delivered here by companies such as Cosmopolitan Projects. Rea Vaya, the City of Johannesburg’s new bus rapid transport system, now also has a route that runs to Protea Glen, which makes it much easier and cheaper for those who live here to get to the CBD.
“At the same time, Protea Glen is a short drive from Roodepoort or Krugersdorp for residents who work in those towns, and there are many day-care centres and crèches in the area to assist the parents with young children who are buying here.”
She says most of the new developments in Protea Glen are aimed at first-time buyers, and generally offer two and three bedroom freehold homes ranging in size from around 50sqm to 70sqm at prices from about R410 000 to just under R500 000.
“This means that most of them fall into the ‘gap’ housing category – which is aimed at helping households that earn between R3 500 and R15 000 acquire their first homes or move up from RDP houses by making use of a FLISP subsidy from the National Housing Finance Corporation.
“These subsidies effectively reduce the size of the home loans that buyers in this income category require and thus make their monthly bond repayments much more affordable. In new developments they are also usually applied for and managed by the developer to make things easier for buyers.” (See http://www.flisp.co.za/pdf/FLISP_Information_Pamphlet_and_quantum.pdf)
However, the turnover of owners in the area is also quite high, Kekana says. “Once they have a house here, many owners start improving or adding on and as they do so, the value of that property starts to increase. In fact, according to the latest available figures from Absa, the national average growth in the value of affordable homes was 7,4% last year.”
At the same time, families grow and salaries improve and these owners find that they would perhaps like to move to a different area, maybe closer to work, or perhaps upgrade to a bigger home. And they will do so if the value of their home here has increased enough so that they will make a profit when they sell and have enough for the deposit on their new property.
“So there is lots of resale stock here, and prices of improved properties with more bedrooms or bathrooms can go all the way up to about R800 000.”
She says the most popular choices for owners relocating from Protea Glen are from older parts of Soweto such as Orlando and Dube – where there is now a serious shortage of homes for sale. “Of course many of the existing residents in these areas don’t want to move, as they are very established and have convenient access to transport and other facilities.
“But another problem we encounter fairly often is that of large municipal rates and service arrears on these properties thanks to the historic boycotts of such payments. In many cases the current owners, who have perhaps inherited the property from a parent or grandparent, don’t have the means to settle these arrears, and so cannot get the city council clearance certificate they would need in order to be able to sell.
“This is causing a bit of a logjam in this section of the market and forcing an increasing number of buyers in the medium price category to go outside Soweto. We could really do with some new developments now in these older areas.”
For further information please visit www.rawson.co.za.
