Tag Archive for: Relocating to South Africa

Andrew Stegmann

KZN’s North Coast Becoming Increasingly Popular for Relocating SA Families

Increasing numbers of Joburg families are swapping their chaotic city lifestyles for estate living on KwaZulu-Natal’s North Coast.

According to Gareth Bailey, Pam Golding Properties area principal for Durban Coastal on the KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) North Coast, an increasing number of people are relocating their families from Gauteng to secure estates on KZN’s North Coast, where they can enjoy the sub-tropical climate, warm ocean, an abundance of top schools, new shopping centres and restaurants.

Bailey said another trend is that the breadwinner often travels to Gauteng during the week and returns on a Thursday or Friday.

These homeowners achieve their primary goal of living in a quality environment and, given the 10 minute trip to the airport and one hour flight to Gauteng, they don’t have to sacrifice much more than the average commute times experienced in the major cities.

“While this semigration trend was initially most prevalent along the Atlantic Seaboard in Cape Town, there has been a significant shift toward the North Coast of KwaZulu-Natal. Two of the main factors affecting Cape Town include the city’s traffic congestion and, most recently, its water shortage.”

“It seems that KZN’s road infrastructure is pre-empting demand with the completion of three massive new interchanges at Umgeni, uMhlanga and Ballito within just a few years of each other. In addition, it seems that the relocation of the international airport to the North Coast has ultimately been a significant enabler of the semigrant trend in our area,” said Bailey.

“While many people still think that it is necessary to sacrifice preferred location to live closer to work and reduce commute times, a new breed of… semigrants are choosing to live in their ideal location and travel to their workplace during the week.”

“I think we will see this trend increasing as congestion in cities increases and people seek to prioritise quality of life over the hum-drum of big city living.”

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, and Remuneration needs, email marketing@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: BusinessTech [1]. Image sources: Jason Briscoe on Unsplash [1].

Andrew Stegmann

Signs of Renewed Expat, Foreigner Interest in SA Housing Market

Due to improved sentiment about South Africa, it would not be surprising to see an increasing demand for SA residential property among foreigners and SA expats, according to John Loos, household and property sector strategist at First National Bank.

This is despite demand levels for SA domestic property from foreigners and SA expats being down significantly compared to 2015 and 2016, according to the FNB Estate Agent Survey for the first quarter of this year.

Estate agents surveyed estimated that 4.3% of total home buying for the two quarters up to and including the first quarter of 2018 was by foreigners.

The survey estimated that the percentage of SA homes being bought by SA expats was 1.51% of homes in the first quarter of 2018, after declining since 2015.

The survey also indicated that the number of buyers from other parts of Africa purchasing residential property in SA has slowed faster than overall foreigner home buying here in recent years. For Loos this could arguably reflect tougher African economic conditions compared to those in more developed countries in recent years.

The estate agents’ estimates about a weakening demand among foreigners and SA expats throughout 2017 reflected “dampened investor sentiment” towards SA in general, according to Loos.

In his view, this was likely caused by the stagnation of SA’s economy over a number of years, uncertainty about the SA government’s future economic policy, and “negative news” about the country such as sovereign rating downgrades to “junk status”.

“However, we have started 2018 with a noticeably more positive mood in South Africa, partly due to the political leadership change in the country following the ruling party’s elective conference in December 2017,” said Loos.

Positivity has also been reflected in a stronger rand and a rise in the RMB-BER Business Confidence Index in the first quarter of 2018.

“We will wait for further quarterly surveys before concluding that foreigner and expat buying levels are picking up meaningfully or not,” said Loos.

 

For information as to how Relocation Africa can help you with your Mobility, Immigration, Research, and Remuneration needs, email marketing@relocationafrica.com, or call us on +27 21 763 4240.

Sources: Fin24 [1]. Image sources: [1].