2009 was 'tough year'

2009 has been a tough one for home owners and property investors and an annus horribilis for estate agents.

But, thankfully it is over. That is the word from estate agents in KZN.

Pat Acutt of Acutts said he would rate 2009 as possibly the most difficult year in property since 1976.

Acutt said the industry had been affected by the global crisis, the National Credit Act, and the strain of new qualification requirements for agents.

He described these requirement as "enormous" even though the positive outcome was the professionalism of estate agents.

But the good news for consumers, Acutt said: "From a property ownership perspective is that the intrinsic value of fixed property didn't crash and, while prices did ease, most clients' properties kept their capital value."

Andrew Golding, the chief executive of Pam Golding Properties, said the market was characterised by at least a 50 percent fall-off in the volume of sales, an extreme scarcity of bank lending finance and, as a generalisation, a marginal fall-off in pricing.

"The past year has seen extremely tough trading conditions for the property industry - all of which conspired to leave companies in this sector competing in a market which halved overnight," Golding said.

Grant Gavin, the broker owner of RE/MAX Panache, said the market kept improving in 2009.

"This year was very good year for us and property in general in the north Durban market. We saw a healthy increase in activity on the demand side as consumers began to feel the positive effects of all the rate cuts and relaxed lending criteria."

Gavin said the downside of 2009 was that sellers did not adjust their price expectations in line with market conditions, to shift the large quantities of stock.

"On the sales side we finished the year 45% up on 2008, which is a remarkable considering we had fewer agents in 2009. Our highest price sale in 2009 was for R10.3 million in Durban North and our average selling price across north Durban was R1.75 million."

Russell Bonnin of Bonnins' Properties said: "For the first seven months of the year sales were scarce and banks were hardly lending. Then suddenly around September, the lights came on for buyers and we have concluded an extraordinary number of sales, culminating in personally concluding in excess of R70 million in sales."

Brenda Liversage, the general manager of Maxprop Residential, said: "It hasn't been an easy year but we broke a few records: the Eshowe office recorded the biggest sale in Eshowe and the Kokstad office sold the biggest development that Kokstad has seen. Over the past three months we sold a couple of new franchises: one in Durban North and one in Ballito."

Sothebys in Umhlanga said it enjoyed some "brilliant sales" in 2009, including four houses in one street in two months in Mount Edgecombe.

Des Landsberg, the sales director of Woodpark Real Estate, describes 2009 as "annus horribilis".

"The first half of the year was especially bad for those in the real estate industry and saw many companies close their doors. The world economic squeeze definitely had a negative effect on our market. Banks and originators also contributed to the hard times.

Sunday Tribune

Posted at 09:17AM Jan 04, 2010 by Editor in Market  |