The local municipality has given a new 800-home affordable suburb in Tzaneen the go-ahead.
Seshwene View will be developed on 530 hectares of land in Ga-Kgapane, 15 km from the centre of Tzaneen. The homes will range in price from R341k to R543k, says Pieter Human, owner of Realty 1 International Property Group in Tzaneen.
According to Human, the development will not only help address Tzaneen's affordable housing shortage, it will also improve the area while simultaneously creating jobs.
Human says Seshwene View will ultimately boast an impressive infrastructure that includes schools, medical and sporting facilities, and a business hub.
Human says buyer interest, currently down on the back of a sluggish national economy, is likely to gain momentum once the earthworks are completed at the end of July. Regardless of price bracket, he adds that activity in Tzaneen's general residential property market is also slow as buyers struggle to get deposits together and secure home loan finance.
As a result, he says the market is being driven by cash buyers who are dictating selling prices.
Mandated to find a R5m home for R3m for a client, Human says that this is an extreme scenario but nevertheless true of what's happening in the middle and lower ends of the market, where sellers are regularly accepting below-asking-price offers. A case in point is a house which he has just sold for R730k after the owner paid R850k for it a year ago.
Saartjie Roelvert, agent for Pam Golding Properties (PGP), says the property market is resilient with quite a few farmers retiring and buying houses in the town.
"Houses and townhouses are generally selling well, because of the prevalence of professionals in the area. These people, and especially the farmers, usually scale up and this is the reason why only a scant amount of flats are being sold. Houses between R1m and R1,4m are the best sellers right now. Plots sales are suffering right now due to the huge 25% deposits required to purchase them," she says.
That said, Human adds his voice to the country-wide call for the banks to soften their lending criteria. "Unless that happens, we're going to enter another unrealistic phase, this time characterised by deserving buyers being forced to abandon their dreams of home ownership." - Eugene Brink
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