Friday, December 27, 2013
Over 60 percent of today’s home buyers in Oudtshoorn are not locals but are from the north, particularly Gauteng or from the Southern Cape coastal towns.
This home offers four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a braai, swimming pool and double garage. It is on the market for R1.77 million - click here to view.
This is according to Isidore Langenhoven, the Rawson Property Group’s franchisee for Oudtshoorn, who says home buyers are attracted to the area because of three main factors: the low crime rate, the warm and dry climate (usually with less than 350 mm of rainfall each winter, although this year was far wetter than usual) and, most importantly, the marked affordability of the housing in this attractive town. It was put on the map in the 1920s and 1930s by the ostrich feather boom and at about the same time, in literary circles, by the poignant Little Karoo stories of Pauline Smith.
On the market are homes priced up to R3 million or more, with the majority of today’s middle class buyers targeting homes in the R600 000 to R900 000 bracket and in this bracket, any correctly priced home will usually sell within one month, he says.
“A buyer from out of town, particularly from Gauteng or towns such as Knysna and George can sell where he currently lives and then buy the same size and quality of home in Oudtshoorn for roughly half what he would receive for the home he has just sold.”
This home has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, a swimming pool, braai area and automated double garage. It is priced at R1.66 million - click here to view.
What’s more, Langenhoven says, although the town is recognised as being a bastion of the Afrikaner culture and tradition, English speaking South Africans enjoy living in the area and fit into Oudtshoorn well.
Some 20 to 30 percent of this franchise’s sales are not, however, in the middle class areas but in the previously disadvantaged districts and here, homes can be had for as little as R180 000, with the majority of sales being between R450 000 and R500 000, he says. Here again, he says, the value for money is quite exceptional compared to similar low cost homes elsewhere.
He says a big plus factor in Oudtshoorn’s favour at the moment is that local banks are now taking a far more lenient view of applicants’ financial positions and awarding almost double the number of mortgages they awarded last year. This, he says, has been a huge blessing to the residential sector, but, regrettably, a surprisingly high percentage (over 80 percent) of applicants in this area are found to have credit blemishes or to be overindebted.
“Pre-qualification counselling can help a great deal, but I have a strong feeling that people have to learn to cut back on the less important spending. Many reviews of applicants’ financial positions reveal that they are heavily indebted on non-essential items, particularly cars, and this, in my view, is totally contrary to South African traditions.”
This home offers five bedrooms and two bathrooms. It is on the market for R899 000 - click here to view.
Langenhoven says as the National Manager of Rawson Finance, Mike van Alphen, has said, until only 30 years ago we were known as a country which did not encourage spending and was prepared to live fairy austerely.
From a buyer’s viewpoint, he says, the good news is that the current low prices will probably be here for some time to come. Although there have been steady price rises this year, they are still below five percent and in the upper brackets no significant price rises have been seen at all this year.
He says the surplus stock will ensure that prices remain reasonable, at least for the coming year. He says they have over 100 homes for sale and until this figure is reduced, it is unlikely that sellers will be able to increase their prices radically, except possibly in the R600 000 plus bracket mentioned earlier.
Oudtshoorn’s affordable prices make it ideally suited to today’s cash short, downscaler or to younger people with limited means looking for a pleasant semi-rural Little Karoo lifestyle – and, it should be noted that once people have lived in Oudtshoorn a few months, they almost invariably become devotees of the town and are always reluctant to move elsewhere, he says.
