Reality bites in south africa

Homeowners in South Africa are being forced to take drastic action when selling their homes.

The Alliance Group - one of the country's largest auction and valuation groups – claims that asking prices for homes are falling as the reality of the market takes hold. Whilst this is clearly bad news for sellers, it’s good news for international investors looking for bargains.

Rael Levitt, Chief Executive of The Alliance Group, commented: “Homeowners are now setting asking prices at about 10% below their peak. The supply of houses being put up for sale has outstripped demand in the past three months, which is the first time this has happened in the past six years.

"There is no doubt that sellers are rapidly becoming far more flexible and realistic due to a flood of stock hitting the market with less and less buyer uptake.  

"It's a classic case of supply exceeding demand and despite South African residential real estate experiencing growth of 300% in a relatively short time frame, reality is now dawning on homeowners that values don't only go upwards but are in fact now decreasing".