Already we have seen a decline in office and industrial property vacancies and strong economic growth is bound to eat further into the vacancies. This should drive strong new development going forward. |
Commercial property, on the other hand, has the more positive outlook. |
Economic factors in the other three metros will play into Port Elizabeth's hands in the coming years. |
Household borrowing is a lot more sustainable than people think. |
I don't think there is need for panic. If there are to be restrictions, it will be mildly negative for the property market. Foreigners are not big players in the domestic market. |
I hadn't expected much to happen on this front. It is positive for the housing market and it will be mild stimulus for house price growth. |
If you look at building plans passed, there is still positive growth for residential property development and a lot of this activity is the flats and townhouse market. |
In the end I think what comes out will be fairly moderate. This government wants FDI. Land ownership is an attracting force for FDI and the government has proven itself in the past to be fairly sensitive to investors' needs and wants. |
It is essential for Durban to expand its industrial capacity. |
It is time for taxes to be more aggressively cut in order for the tax burden as a percentage of gross domestic product to decline to below 25 percent in line with the Gear [Growth, Employment and Redistribution] strategy. |
It's still a fairly good story; the long-term boom will continue for some time. |
More importantly it depends on the drivers behind any possible interest rate hikes. Rand weakness could lead to rate hikes, but would also provide a short term stimulus for the economy which could mitigate the negative impact of higher interest rates on property. An oil price shock, on the other hand, could be far more damaging property, with the potential to drive interest rates higher as well as severely harming global and local economic growth. |
The residential property market hit rock bottom. |
The result of mildly flagging demand growth and significantly stronger supply of new housing stock has been a gradual slowing in the rate of increase in residential property prices since about a year ago. |
The slowing growth is reflective of a slowdown in the pace of growth both in house price inflation, as well as more recently a decline in the inflation rate in the total value of buildings completed. |