Property prices in Jeffreys Bay now range between R500k for apartments and R7m for luxury holiday properties.
So says Martin Schultheiss, CEO of Harcourts Africa, who adds that family homes are selling from R800k upwards.
Jeffrey's Bay is also experiencing a huge development boom, in spite of a short-term moratorium on development in 2007.
Property sales are healthy, both in new developments as well as in the second hand market, and the trend towards holiday homes seems to be changing to more of a residential focus, says Hennie Griezel, principal of the local Realty 1 International Property Group franchise.
The wave of semigration has also resulted in a commercial boom for the town, Griezel says.
Demand for offices, retail property and business premises is high, and the existing Loodts industrial area is insufficient.
Construction is currently underway on the Fountains shopping centre which will add 40,000sqm of retail space to the town, while another shopping centre of 18,000 sq m is 92% sold out. All this will be needed to service the residents of the 20-odd new developments that have gone up over the past two years, says Griezel.
And what about rentals? "There is a big demand for rentals at present, but we don't' always have stock to satisfy the market," Griezel says. Holiday rentals in particular are in demand over the festive season, when the number of people in the town increases from around 50,000 to over 120,000. – Eugene Brink
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If this is so, why do I have such problems to sell my property in J bay, being a 250 sqmeters face brick property with sweeping sea views for R1,100,000 nett? – A.D. van Zyl
These guys don't know what they are talking about. First of all, come and look at the new developments (apartments) standing empty for more than a year now. The same goes for office/business space. The normal process happened here, where development happened at such a crazy rate, that "overdevelopment" is the result, with all the negatives coupled too it.
On the residential side, the number of houses for sale is growing and the sales cannot keep up. Once again, the new developments are just adding to the proble. The second big problem for Jeffreys is that the infrastructure just cannot cope with all this developments. The sewerage system alone needs at least an investment of R40m just to cater for the current volumes, let alone the added volumes from new developments. This aal is the result of bad/no planning with regard to the overall situation in the area. The developers only see money signs and do not care about the consequences of all this new developments. - Gerrie Botes