9/10 richest SA suburbs are in Cape Town

THE ECONOMIC pressures and junk status notwithstanding, properties in the Cape are still fetching excellent prices according to Samuel Seeff, chairperson of the Seeff Property Group.

A study by Seeff, based on data from Lightstone and Propstats for the period 2011/12 to 2016/17, also reveals Cape Town is now home to nine of the 10 richest suburbs in the country, up from seven two years ago, says Seeff.

Clifton tops the list with an average selling price of R23 million. Only one Johannesburg/Sandton suburb, Sandhurst, ranks in the top 10 at fourth place with an average selling price of R16.5m. This is two places lower since late 2015. Westcliff and Dunkeld have dropped off the top 10 list.

The top 10 rank as: Clifton (R23m), Llandudno (R17m), Bantry Bay (R16.9m), Sandhurst (R16.5m), Camps Bay ( R16.2m), Fresnaye (R16m), Waterfront (R16m), Higgovale ( R16m), Bishopscourt ( R15.1m) and Constantia Upper (R11.6m).

Seeff points out that the decline in the rankings of the top- end Johannesburg and Sandton suburbs become even more pronounced in the R20m-plus super-luxury sector. High net-worth buyers are just not investing at the same levels in Sandton and even less in Pretoria East and, he says, the palatial homes there are still struggling to achieve the pace of sales and prices the Atlantic seaboard and City Bowl are achieving.

Lightstone data shows for the Joburg/Sandton area, an average of six to seven residential transactions priced above R20m were recorded annually between 2010 and 2015. This increased to 10 transactions over the last year. Only three Pretoria East residential transactions appear to have taken place since 2010.

Comparatively, 20- 50 transactions were recorded for the Cape in the 2010-2014 period, rising to 67 last year, or three times more compared to Joburg, Sandton and Pretoria East.

By early June this year, there had already been 44 transactions above R20m generating over R1.1 billion in revenue. Incidentally, 30% of these were to Joburg buyers, a handful from KZN and only a few foreign sales (mostly UK and German buyers), the latter being less than 10%, and, says Seeff, far less than commonly perceived.

Where prices have comfortably reached the R100m- R200m- plus price levels on the Atlantic seaboard, Pretoria East has only had a single sale of R45m (Waterkloof, 2014) and R66m in Sandton (Empire Place, Sandhurst, 2016). Even in the City Bowl, Seeff has just concluded a record R34m sale and in Hout Bay R32m.

Seeff says he would have expected the figures to have been reversed, with Joburg/ Sandton achieving more sales and much higher prices considering Sandton’s status as the wealth capital of the continent and the wealth there is enormous, he adds.

Pretoria East is home to the premier government and ambassador- ial belt and Seeff says he would have expected the figures to be reversed.

Seeff believes buyers and property investors, not just at the top-end of the market, but across the board, want to know they are investing in areas where service delivery and zero tolerance for corruption are hallmarks. They want to know their investment is not just safe, but will grow in value.

The Atlantic seaboard average selling prices (full title) have more than doubled over the last five years (since 2011/2012), says Lance Cohen, Seeff ’s luxury market specialist for the Atlantic seaboard.

The biggest gains have been recorded in Fresnaye (+167%) and Camps Bay (+128%), with the latter attracting the highest number of R20m-plus sales.