High-net-worth metro areas property taking strain – FNB
THE High-net-worth segment of the residential property market in metro areas is taking strain and delivered a sub-par performance last year.
It was the only segment to register a deterioration in the overall financial strength of home buyers/sellers during the year and had the lowest demand rating of the four segments, according to a report released by FNB yesterday on its home buying estate agent survey by segment.
John Loos, a household and property sector analyst at FNB, said that in each of the four income segments of the market, FNB subtracted the percentage of sellers selling to upgrade from the percentage downscaling to get the “net financial strength-related downscaling”.
Although the middleincome segment had the lowest percentage of net financial strength-related downscaling of the four segments at 4 percent of total selling last year, the high-net-worth segment at 4.8 percent was the only segment that weakened compared with 2010.
The upper-income segment had a net financial strength-related downscaling percentage of 6.5 percent and the lowerincome segment 10 percent.
FNB defined high-net-worth residential areas as those with average house price of R3.7 million last year, upper-income areas averaged R2.2m, middle-income areas R1.2m and lower-income areas R679 000.
Loos said that the high-networth segment appeared to have been the underperformer in the major metro housing