Durbanville's updated residential sales figures confirm the area's growing popularity

The latest figures from the respected property analysts Lightstone bear out the bullish statements that he has from time to time made about the prospects for what is arguably the Cape Town Northern Suburbs’ most prestigious and popular suburb, Durbanville, said Rowan Alexander, Director of Alexander Swart Property, this week.

Listing these figures, Alexander said that there are in Durbanville now 8295 freehold properties and 1674 sectional title properties in gated estates, 9701 freehold 

homes and 4314 sectional title units not in estates. “Durbanville therefore has 23984 properties altogether,” said Alexander. “This makes it one of the largest and most popular suburbs in Cape Town with annual sales way above the average.

Some idea of how Durbanville is attracting new buyers can be gained from the fact that according to Lightstone 32% of home owners in the suburb have been there for less than five years while  only 42% of owners have lived there for over 10 years.”

Over the past 12 months, said Alexander, total residential sales in the area were R3926 billion and this was achieved with 1939 sales. Of these 1668 were repeat 

sales/registrations (i.e. second, third, fourth or fifth time resales) while 271 were first time sales/registrations.

“To those not familiar with the property market the new unit sales figures can be very misleading,” said Alexander. “14% of the sales in the analysis were first time 

registrations but this figure is calculated on the number of sales, not their overall value. However, even the value figure, 15,7% of the total, is misleading.

The reason for this is that this figure usually refers only to the land (plot) sales in the new homes (which amounted to only R670million), not to the combined price of the land and the home built on it, which obviously would be a far higher. New developments generally sell the land and the building/home separately, the land being paid for  first and the building only once transfer of ownership has taken place.”

“The true value, therefore, of recent first time sales/registrations in Durbanville over the last 12 months was certainly over R1.5billion and potentially even over  

R2billion i.e. potentially 38% not  15,7% of the total sales values which we estimate to be +/- R4.8 - R5,3billion. The average price of new homes coming on stream, therefore, is way above previous prices seen in Durbanville until recently and these homes are transforming the area.

“The main drivers of these higher sales,” said Alexander, “are the two new big estates Clara Anna Fontein and Graanendal both of which are selling fast with prices of anything from R 2,750,000 to R 20,000,000.”

“This seems to indicate,” said Alexander, “that the upper income buyers of the Northern suburbs, who are known to be careful and conservative about their finances, are now drawing on funds accumulated over the years to buy into these higher priced developments- and the reason for this is that they appreciate the excellence of the new products and believe them to be very sound investments.”

Another set of figures (those reflecting bank mortgage awards in Durbanville), said Alexander, show that competition by banks for involvement in home finance in this area is strong. In 2016 Standard Bank overtook ABSA as the leading bond supplier in the area; then however ABSA made up the ground they had lost to take the lead spot in 2017 with R630 million laid out in Durbanville bonds while Standard Bank and FNB both handled +/- R495million worth of bonds and Nedbank and Investec each did around R320million worth. In 2018 the trends in the home loan finance sector were much the same: ABSA, Standard Bank and FNB remained in the lead with Nedbank and Investec following on.

“All the figures mentioned,” said Alexander, “confirm the growing belief that Durbanville holds the top position in Northern suburbs home buyers’ preferences--in all age groups.” He warned however that with prices continuing to buck the national trend and rise ahead of the inflation rate those hoping to move to Durbanville should take action as soon as possible.

“With prices continuing to rise so steadily those who do not make adequate provision for a purchase in the next year or two will find it increasingly harder to become a property owner in this precinct.”