In the last 12 to 24 months, Sea Point and Green Point have become very active property trading precincts and are highly sought after. This was said recently by the Rawson Property Group’s Sea Point franchise’s General Manager, Alisdair Crofton. The franchise is owned by Sandy Soller.
“We have,” said Crofton, “now reached the stage at which prices have not only stabilized but are starting to creep up slowly by small increments, generally in the region of 2 to 4% per annum. Sea Point can now no longer be seen as suitable to all entry level buyers as it was in the past. We simply no longer have the lower and lower middle bracket prices, those in the R500,000 to R800,000 category that were available at one stage here.”
Overseas investors are now more in evidence than ever before. An investor from China recently bought two apartments through the Rawson Property Group, one for R4 million and one for R1,1 million. What is more, this deal was concluded without the buyer actually visiting the properties: he made his decision purely on the strength of emails and virtual information.
One of the surprising aspects of the Sea Point apartment market, added Crofton, is the way that units in the same block can vary in price from R10 million (for a top floor apartment on Beach Road with sea views) to R900,000 (for a single bedroom ground floor back-of-the-block unit with no view at all).
Trading conditions in the more expensive areas served by his franchise, said Crofton, are still fairly sluggish because the call for more expensive properties is still limited. However, he added, in Camps Bay, Bantry Bay and even the V&A Waterfront, prices have now stabilized. Properties in Camps Bay can vary in price from R2,5 million to R25 million (with one or two homes priced even higher) but occasionally a sectional title unit comes onto the market priced below R1,5 million. In the V&A Waterfront, apartment prices are still beyond the reach of most of today’s buyers: they can be as high as R20 million and even the smallest single bedroom units cost above R3,5 million.
Asked to give examples of what he would consider good buys in his area, Crofton mentioned:
1.) A 45 m2 single bedroom apartment on the second floor of the prestigious Sloane Square apartment block in Somerset Road, Green Point. This is on the market for a very reasonable R850,000, the low price probably being attributable to the fact that it does not have a sea view, although it does have a diagonal view of the mountain.
2.) An eight bedroom three storey home in Camps Bay which has been serving as a bed and breakfast establishment, but could be an ideal home for a large family or for two families. Most of the rooms have sea views and there is a sparkling pool in the garden which has been very well developed and maintained.
Sea Point, added Crofton, has traditionally always been tenant territory: as many as 80% of the local residents are in fact tenants. The demand for this type of accommodation always comes close to exceeding supply here, with the result that rentals in the first quarter of this year were 7 to 8% up on the same period last year. This trend, he predicted, would continue. Rentals in Sea Point and Green Point can vary from R 4,000 to R 50,000 per month.
