With the appointment of a new Rawson Properties franchise team to serve the Langebaan/Hopefield area, Tony Clarke, MD of Rawson Properties, is signalling to the real estate world that he sees the Capes West Coast as one of the prime residential growth districts over the next decade in South Africa.
Clarke has gone on record as saying, 'What we saw here in the boom years of 2006/2007 is, I believe, just a prelude to what is coming. This is the holiday area which will develop fastest in the entire Western Cape'
The new Rawson Properties team at Langebaan is made up of two men with extensive experience in property marketing and a former passenger ship captain who, after 36 years at sea, has taken the bold step of moving into the property world.
He is Kevin Moran. His experience includes 16 years with Safmarine and 17 years in command of passenger vessels plying between the western coast of England and Ireland. He has also captained ships doing voyages to Bermuda and the Mediterranean in 2003 and 2005.
Moran took over the franchise in August 2009, buying it from one of Rawson Properties most successful multi-franchise principals, David Evans. Within a comparatively short period, he said, he had identified Julian Day and Emil Weiss of Century 21 At Home as two highly knowledgeable and trusted principals and fellow agents. After much negotiation and discussion and with the encouragement and assistance of Rawson Properties MD, Tony Clarke, a deal finalising the restructuring of the Rawson Langebaan franchise was put through just before the end of 2009.
Weiss is an accountant with a Stellenbosch University degree who had already set up three property franchises in the area. Day had learned the ins-and-outs of property as Sales & Marketing Director for a company selling luxury residential and holiday accommodation in Southern Spain, the Canary Islands and the Emirates. All three partners are fully bilingual.
Some indication of the high standards and ambitious goals that this team has set for itself will be gained from the fact that within three weeks of being established they had already listed some 600 properties on their books. They had also secured the sole mandate for two developments and are now employing six agents in all, with expectations of increasing this figure by a further three or four.
The Langebaan team is currently operating from both the Laguna Mall and a high profile property in the main road of Langebaan. They will probably in the near future decide to operate solely from this property as its position has already proved ideal in attracting walk-up clients.
All three of the Rawson Properties partners at Langebaan have no doubts that Clarkes optimistic views regarding the potential of the Cape West Coast are fully justified. They said recently that Langebaan was one of the last areas to feel the recession and is now proving to be one of the first to climb out of it.
'For almost four months now we have seen sales slowly improving,' said Weiss. 'This, we think, will continue - with '˜normal pre-recession trading conditions and turnover being achieved by the end of 2010'
Rawson Properties, said Moran, is aiming to be the No 1 agency in the area - and in terms of stock listed it has already achieved that. By the end of 2010, he predicts, it will be handling a substantial percentage of the total sales in the area per month.
Langebaan, said Day, has always had a high percentage of absentee owners, but this pattern is slowly changing. By the end of 2010, he said, over 50% of those living here will be permanent residents.
'The area has the great advantages of offering very reasonable prices and a near-perfect lifestyle. There is also a very wide range of properties. On the Rawson Properties list we have properties ranging from R750 000 (for a two bedroom apartment) to R10 million plus. One home, in fact, has a listed price of over R16 million'
The average price for homes in Langebaan, however, said Moran, remains somewhere between R1,3 million to R1,6 million, making this area still eminently affordable to those looking to buy a holiday home or to scale down from slightly more expensive homes in Greater Cape Town, Johannesburg and other areas.
Discussing the lifestyle, Day says that this section of the coast is now listed as one of the two or three prime areas in South Africa for water sports: kite surfing, sailing, water-skiing, kayaking, fishing and diving. Boat charter companies are, he said, flourishing and there are now 58 bed and breakfasts, guesthouses and hotels in Langebaan alone.
'The big attraction,' said Weiss, 'is not just the sea village atmosphere but also the relatively low crime figures. In addition, the straight, smooth, uncongested highway from Cape Town to Langebaan - with a slow speed shortcut through the West Coast National Park if the visitor so desires - has found great favour with those tired of the traffic congestion and tardiness of the traditional routes to Hermanus and beyond.
As indicated, the franchise has the exclusive marketing rights on two new developments and has a further three in the pipeline. These are Sunset Heights near Club Mykonos, where a sectional title flat in the traditional West Coast style can be bought from R780 000 to R1 350 000 and an as yet undisclosed development in the Langebaan area.
Also being marketed by this Rawson Properties franchise, as partner agents, is the MSP, Racec, Burger and Wallis Atlantic Waves development at Laaiplek. Prices range from R899 900 to R 2 099 000. The project will consist of more than 100 units, all freestanding and all designed in an authentic West Coast style with white walls, black roofs, wooden shutters and stable doors in bright traditional colours, bakoond type chimneys, gables, voorstoeps with pergolas, terracotta tiled floors and open plan interiors. These are, said Moran, some of the most attractive homes on the Cape West Coast and have been designed for a lock-up-and-go lifestyle.
'Every indication,' said Moran, 'points to the fact that the Cape West Coast is now in every respect the flavour of the month and is still growing in popularity. Day by day, as we come out of the recession, we are seeing interest in the area and the number of enquiries growing and this augers very well for the year ahead'
