Poland tops the house-price growth league in Europe, but the runaway global leader is South Africa, where average prices have almost tripled in five years.
During the early post-apartheid days, British and German buyers picked up properties along Cape Town’s Atlantic seaboard at bargain prices — and are now sitting on a fortune.
In Cape Town’s most sought-after addresses, such as Clifton, average prices have hit about R6,4-million, while penthouse apartments command price tags upward of R28million.
At the Marina development on Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront, developers started selling one-bedroomed apartments off-plan for about R600 000 five years ago. Now the cheapest go for R3,2-million.
“It was around the turn of the century that people began to realise that South Africa wasn’t going to collapse,” says the sales manager of the Marina development.
About half his buyers are foreign, mostly British or Irish. “We get a lot of retired British people who live here six months a year. The Irish buyers are almost all speculators buying off-plan and selling soon afterwards.”
Foreigners own about 30% of the properties on the Atlantic seaboard.
Cluttons, the upmarket British estate agency, opened its first South African branch six years ago and now has 10 in Cape Town. Nearly all its buyers are European.
“Prices are never going to go down here. Even when the economy has been bad, prime Cape Town real estate has held up.
Development is restricted and there’s a permanent shortage,” says David Webb of Cluttons. — Â