LURE OF QUIET PLACES
There’s been a steady trek to the Western Cape’s winelands district from mid-2020, as city dwellers look to relocate permanently to the countryside
The Cape winelands, traditionally regarded more as a weekend getaway and tourist hotspot than a primary home destination, appears to be a beneficiary of the pandemic-induced exodus out of major cities. The Paarl, Wellington and Tulbagh areas are all said to have recorded a particularly strong uptick in buyer inquiries.
Chris Cilliers, co-principal of Lew Geffen Sotheby’s International Realty in the winelands, says sales in the area have been “incredibly active” in the past six to nine months. Last year’s aggressive interest rate cuts to near 50-year lows have no doubt made it easier for people to sell and relocate or buy a second property in a destination of their choice.
Cilliers notes that the relocation trend has been fuelled by the widespread adoption of remote and flexible working policies.
Secure lifestyle estates that offer leisure amenities and green spaces, such as Val de Vie Estate, Winelands Estate, Groot Parys, Kleine Parys, Honeydew Country Estate, Bergenzicht and Welgevonden and Boschenmeer Golf Estate, are especially popular.
Cilliers believes the appeal of the winelands goes beyond its obvious attractions of easy access to a host of award-winning vineyards and scenic mountain walks. She says Covid has prompted South Africans to reassess their priorities and lifestyle choices. The upshot, it seems, is a newfound appreciation for a healthier, more relaxed lifestyle in an attractive country setting where you don’t have to deal daily with traffic congestion, noise and pollution.
“City attractions such as going out to pubs, clubs and restaurants and buying things in big malls have seemingly also lost some of their allure. Now it’s more about spending quality time outdoors with
your family,” she says.
Pierre Germishuys, MD for Seeff in the district, points to a marked increase in demand among younger families who are “semigrating” from other provinces. That’s especially true for the Paarl area, which is known for its choice of quality schools.
“Top government schools like Paarl Boys’
High and Paarl Gymnasium are big drawcards,” says Germishuys.
Private schools in the area include Bridge House, Simond and the newly opened Green School SA, which has its roots in Indonesia.
The Green School is the first of its kind in SA and situated on an 8ha site adjacent to Val de Vie. It is entirely off the grid in terms of water, electricity and waste management. It follows a US curriculum that incorporates thematic-style learning along the line of the UN’s sustainable development goals.
It’s no longer about building a one-dimensional golf estate. That concept is dead
Increased buyer demand has already prompted developers to bring more housing products to the winelands market. In the Paarl-Franschhoek valley and surrounds at least a dozen new housing projects are in the early development stages or in the pipeline.
But not every development will necessarily be successful.
Cilliers says the biggest demand is for properties priced up to R6m, and that there is a particular stock shortage in the R2mR3m category. Germishuys agrees that most of the action is in the lower price bands, up to R3.5m.
Housing data, based on deeds office
Ryk Neethling
transfers tracked by Property24, underscores the extent to which buyer demand has supported property values in the Cape winelands. Average prices for freehold property in the district were up nearly 11% last year and have firmed by a further 10% in the year to date (see graph).
That compares with an average 3.5% price rise for SA as a whole last year, according to the
First National Bank (FNB) house-price index.
The winelands has also strongly outperformed in the year to date when compared with the national average of 4% growth recorded by FNB in January and February (year on year).
Latest figures from data analytics group Lightstone show that in Paarl alone the median price of freehold property has risen by nearly 48% over the past 18 months or so — from
R1.285m in 2019 to the current R1.9m.
The average price of undeveloped residential stands more than doubled over the same time — from R270,000 to R630,000.
Val de Vie, which is believed to be the largest lifestyle development in SA, recorded its best sales month in its history in September, with 32 transactions concluded. The estate is nestled between Paarl and Franschhoek, at the foot of the Klein Drakenstein mountains.
Val de Vie marketing director and Olympic swimmer Ryk Neethling says sales have been equally brisk since September — 127 properties worth R695m were sold at the estate in the six months to the end of February. That is nearly three times more than the 46 transactions (worth R170m) recorded in the first six months of 2020.
Neethling says sales have been driven to a large extent by professionals from Cape Town who are working from home and need to go to the office only once a week or so.
“People are looking for more space and a slower pace, but [they] still want to be in relatively close proximity to Cape Town,” he says.
Neethling believes Val de Vie is creating a blueprint for what he calls “a holistic approach to wellness”, which he expects will become a big trend in global real estate.
In essence, the concept refers to mixed-use developments that promote the physical, emotional, intellectual, community and financial wellbeing of their residents.
“It’s no longer about building a one-dimensional golf estate,” says Neethling. “That concept is dead.”
Typically, only 20% of buyers in any given golf estate actually play golf, he says. Besides, the running costs are astronomical and the water usage requirement has become a major concern in the light of recent droughts. As a result, golf estates have to evolve and can no longer rely on a golf course as their key selling point.
Val de Vie’s innovative approach to wellness has made the estate virtually triple its footprint and exponentially grow its tally of leisure and lifestyle amenities since it was launched by developer Martin Venter in 2006. At the time, the estate consisted of less than 300ha of barren land, most of it a former quarry.
Though the initial focus was on its polo and equestrian offering, neighbouring Pearl Valley golf estate and 500-odd houses were incorporated into Val de Vie in 2016. Other neighbouring tracts of mostly unused farmland were added over time, and today Val de Vie spans nearly 1,000ha.
Apart from Pearl Valley’s 18-hole Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course, Val de Vie has a myriad other leisure and wellness amenities scattered throughout its various residential phases. The list includes three polo fields, an equestrian centre, numerous paddocks, a number of swimming pools — including an Olympic-size outdoor training pool — three fully equipped gyms, tennis and squash courts, 21km of walking trails, 40km of mountain bike trails, three restaurants, two coffee shops and delis, a multitude of dams and lakes that allow catch-andrelease fishing, a 41ha fynbos reserve where various buck roam, and an enclosed dog-running park.
Val de Vie incorporates a 60ha working farm where residents can pick fresh vegetables, as well as a cellar that produces wine under the
Val de Vie and L’Huguenot Vineyards labels. The latter exports about 3-million bottles of wine to China each year.
The estate also has various green credentials and its own boreholes to supplement municipal water supplies, as well as a 2,000m² office component, which houses dentists’ and doctors’ rooms, a beauty/hair salon and the like.
Neethling believes pandemic-related changes in the way people live and work have also accelerated demand for developments that offer multigenerational living. To this end, Val de Vie offers different types of housing products at different price points, he says.
Though the average selling price at Val de Vie is R10m, two-bedroom sectional-title townhouses are for sale from R3.4m and freestanding three-bedroom homes on stands of an average 350m² can be had for about R4.3m. Undeveloped stands of 750m²-1,500m² vary from R1.6m to R3m while large homesteads on sprawling 2ha-3ha stands are valued at between R20m and R100m.
In addition, a retirement component with frail-care facilities was introduced in 2018 under developer Amdec’s Evergreen umbrella. The retirement village comprises 134 standalone properties priced from R3.6m-R6.5m that are sold on a life-rights basis. A further 60 properties are in the pipeline and a number of onebedroom apartments will be launched later this year, each priced at about R1.6m.
Ultimately, as Neethling stresses, an estate development can be sustainable only if each individual offering is financially viable and it doesn’t end up being heavily subsidised by residents via sky-high monthly levies.
“Everything you do has to be authentic. There’s no point in adding facilities to an estate if they’re purely going to be sales gimmicks,” he says.