Boost house buying power, Ramaphosa

When the discussion turns to South Africa’s unequal society, there is, understandably, a lot said about the superrich at the top and the poor at the bottom of the pyramid. Little is said or done about improving the lot of the long-suffering middle class, who are the people who make the wheels of the country go round.

Many of you reading this are middle class and are being taxed to death (it feels like that) and looked at to provide more. It feels that people are going backwards in terms of their standard of living.

More proof of that came this week with the revelation that property prices have risen by more than 300% since 2000 … but there has been no increase in disposable incomes at the same rate.

According to FNB property strategist John Loos, this means that buying a house is becoming less affordable for the majority of people. This, in turn, according to Lighthouse Property, means that people are staying in their homes longer – hanging on to houses for an average of 12 years, whereas during the property boom years between 2003 and 2005, the average was seven years.

Other factors which make house buying intimidating are high transfer and bond costs.

It has been proved that home ownership brings stability to a society … and, while The Citizen thinks about people who live in shacks and giving them RDP-type houses, no one in authority thinks about those starting out and trying to get their feet on the lower rungs of the property ladder.

As part of your package to stimulate the economy, President Cyril Ramaphosa, how about bringing back a government subsidy for first-time home owners?

With more disposable income, that would be one way to boost the economy. Worth thinking about.