The South African residential property market will rebound by 2010, predicted real estate group Colliers International today.

The group said the prediction was based on the real estate clock, developed in 1933, which demonstrates the cycles and current state of the market and represents them as a clock face.

"The property market goes through cycles like any other and follows a pattern," said Sanett Uys director of Colliers International in South Africa.

"It cycles all the way from boom periods through contraction, recession, and falling values before beginning the upward swing in the cycle that includes uneven recovery, recovery, expansion, increased funding availability and back to a boom period," explained Uys.

The full cycle ranges from seven to nine years, each country and city has a cycle, and there are different sectors of the property market. The South African residential property market is under continuous pressure and in a state of deflation.

Uys noted that new mortgage loans granted continue to show year-on-year decline and the major financial institutions are predicting a 21 percent decline in the value of mortgage loans and re-advances for 2008.
full story from Business Report here